


Kintsugi

by LittleDarlingXOX



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Big Brother Jason Todd, Detox, Developing Friendships, Drug Use, Drug Withdrawal, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Jason's actually a really nice guy, Living Together, Panic Attacks, look guys i actually wrote something thats not JayTim, proving I can write a good fic without romance, roy harper is Tim's sponser
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2019-07-21 01:56:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16150112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleDarlingXOX/pseuds/LittleDarlingXOX
Summary: Final Crisis/Red Robin AU. Dick admits Tim to a psychiatric facility after Bruce is lost in time. Jason finds him suffering at the hands of a Scarecrow-copycat and breaks him out. While safe in Jason’s apartment, Tim still struggles with panic attacks and drug withdrawal. At a loss for what to do, Jason calls Roy Harper.





	1. Chapter 1

It had been a little more than a week since Jason had been locked out of Tim’s criminal database when he decided to stop waiting around for Tim to grant him access again. Screw being patient and playing nice. A week’s worth of increasingly less polite voicemails on Tim’s phone was evidence to how well that tactic had worked for Jason.

So, Jason decided to fall back on the more tried and true tactic of breaking and entering. If he couldn’t get Tim to return his calls, Jason would just have to corner him into a conversation. This was how Jason found himself prying open the window to Tim’s apartment in the early evening hours and slipping inside.

He straightened up as his boots made contact with the wood floor of Tim’s living room and glared around in confusion when neither fists nor any audible alarms greeted his arrival. Strange.

“Hey, Tim. You here?” But a quick check of all of the rooms in Tim’s apartment told Jason he wasn’t.

Jason contemplated leaving and searching the streets, though he hadn’t heard Red Robin over the comms for a few days. He stared longingly at Tim’s desk where his laptop rested open, the screen turned matte by a thin layer of dust. He really couldn’t afford to wait around on Tim with his street cred going down the toilet.

“Ah, screw it.” He sat in Tim’s desk chair and got to work on cracking the password. Four tries later saw Jason rummaging around in Tim’s desk drawers hoping he’d left some password clue so that Jason wouldn’t getting locked out for another incorrect attempt. It was a waste of time since Jason knew Tim was too smart to ever write down a password.

A reminder scribbled on a sticky note to do laundry before he ran out of clean underwear?

Sure.

But a password to help his dear older brother?

Of course not.

“Jeez, all of this because the kid doesn’t have a sense of humor. You set your brother up as the fall guy for one of your murders. Just _once_ . Just as a joke! And then he kicks you out of his network and you’re left with your excel spreadsheet of crime syndicates that hasn’t been updated in _months_ . And then you go shake some answers out of Penguin’s number two guy, only to find out that that guy got locked up by GCPD two months ago. And _then_ you have to settle for getting answers from Penguin’s shit-for-brains cousin, _Larry._ ” Jason slammed the final drawer closed, “ _Fucking Larry.”_

Jason spun around in Tim’s desk chair, going over his options once again. He’d sooner break into the Batcave and risk running into Dick and Damian than subject himself to updating his own old-school records. Jason’s eyes landed on the Star Trek poster mounted on the wall across from him. He halted his spinning as realization struck him. “Oh, you beautiful, beautiful, nerd.”

He pulled the framed poster off the wall and flipped it around, searching for the clips that locked it in place. A small piece of paper the size of a business card dropped onto Jason’s boot as he freed the backing from its frame. He snatched it up and logged into Tim’s laptop.

Jason was in the process of closing out of Tim’s records, having already sent a copy to himself, when a notification in the corner caught his eye. He clicked into it and was surprised to see it was a message Tim had sent to himself. Or was it?

Jason read over the message again.

_Find my iphone._

_User: T.drake007@gmail.com_

_Pass: Batcow_

He had a tracking device built into his suit if he needed someone to find his location. But if he was in his civvies…

Jason pulled his own phone free of his jacket pocket and signed into Tim’s account. As the map narrowed in on Tim’s last location, Jason was already out the window and climbing up the fire escape.“Whatever this wild goose chase is, kid, I _really_ hope I don’t find your dead body at the end of it.”

* * *

 

Jason checked the pinned location on his phone once more and then stared across at the glowing letters on the Breckenridge Psychiatric Hospital sign again. Of all of the places Jason expected Tim to be hiding out in while in his civvies, a mental hospital in Bludhaven didn’t even make the list. It filled Jason with an uneasy feeling.

He decided to play it safe to start off with and removed his domino mask, slipping it into the pocket of his leather jacket which he zipped up tight to cover his body armor hidden underneath. He made his way to the front doors, wrestling with his anxiety the entire way there. After all... things had been more than a little crazy with Bruce dying, Damian replacing Tim as Robin, and Tim moving on to his new identity as Red Robin. It wasn’t impossible that Tim had checked himself in for a bit, though there was a nasty notion floating around the back of Jason’s head that this whole situation reeked of Dick’s smothering sort of concern.  

Jason asked for Alvin Draper at the receptionist desk, Tim’s go-to undercover identity.

The nurse behind the reception station replied in a tone that suggested she was reading off doctor’s notes from her computer. “Mr. Draper was recently moved to the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit after exhibiting violent behavior against the hospital staff. His visitation privileges have been temporarily suspended until his psychologist believes he is no longer a harm to himself or others.”

Jason blinked hard at that one. “Violent behavior against the staff? I think there’s got to be a mistake here. What medical reason did T—uh, Alvin give when he checked himself into the facility.”

“Mr. Draper didn’t check himself in. A family member petitioned for it to prevent further destructive behaviors to his person and the public.”

 _The public_ , Jason mentally rolled his eyes. _He’s 130 lbs dripping wet. What’s the worst he could do?_

Still, if Tim was here against his will, this didn’t bode well for the situation within the family and Tim’s emotional state at the moment. Jason slumped against the receptionist’s station, not believing what he was hearing and wanting nothing more than to bang his forehead against the table top. “Wait… so you’re telling me he’s here on involuntary psych hold?”

“Okay. Okay,” Jason couldn’t figure out when Tim’s well-being had become such a serious issue for Jason, but suddenly here he was acting like the kid’s lawyer. “Well, when did he get committed? Psych holds are usually only for a few days and then the issue has to be brought up against a judge, right?”

“Shouldn’t you know all this already, hon? I thought you said you were a friend of the family. Do you want me to call the person of contact and see if they can come down and explain the situation?”

Jason could sense the motherly concern in her voice. He was trying to fly under the radar on this and having the nurse take an interest in him was not the way to do that. He’d draw too much attention to himself and to ‘Alvin Draper’ and that was the last thing Jason needed, but it wasn’t entirely useless.

“No, no. That’s okay,” Jason waved off the question. “Look… If I can’t talk to him, could you at least pass on a gift to him from me?”

The nurse opened her mouth, an objection clearly in the making. Jason beat her to the punch as he pulled a paperback book free of his backpack. “It’s just a book. No lewd images or anything like that. I promise.”

He watched the woman sigh and fiddle with the pen she held. As he figured, that motherly concern was still lingering in the air. She’d feel too heartless to deny him entirely. “Fine. Take a seat and I’ll let you know if it passes the security check.”

Jason flashed her his best smile and perched on the edge of a waiting room chair. _Thank God I was expecting a stakeout and brought something to read_.

“What’s your name, hon?” She wiggled the book held in her hand. “For your friend.”

“Tell him it’s from John D. He’ll know who I am.” He replied as the woman made ready to stand up.

As the nurse left for the security desk, Jason skimmed his eyes across the signs for the Psych ICU wing and walked out the main doors. It looked like John Doe would have to return Alvin Draper’s favor and stage a prison break of his own.

* * *

  Jason walked around the entire hospital two times, once in a tight perimeter to check for  possible points of entry on the grounds and parking garage level, and once more in a wider circle to evaluate the upper floors. He stopped back at his apartment to refill his backpack with supplies, shed his hoodie and don his helmet. Then he was out the door.

Jason scaled a drainpipe up to the floor where the Psych ICU was located and slide in through a cracked window in the staff break room. It wasn’t exactly easy to walk around a hospital in body armor and a red helmet unnoticed, even on the night shift when most of the nurses were getting a head start on  their paperwork. So Jason had timed his break-in at the same time as a new admittee, whose arrival came with a police and paramedic escort. All he had to do was wait as a huddle of nurses rushed passed his hiding spot for the elevator before he could walk freely into the PICU, using the ID card he’d swiped off a sleeping attendant while waiting.

The unit was sparsely populated in comparison to the general psych unit, with all of the patients closed off from each other behind locked doors in their own private rooms. Jason glanced through the window of each door until he found a patient who actually returned his stare. The kid, probably a boy all of fifteen, startled back at the sight of him, but seemed to recover when he realized the Red Hood wasn’t after him.

“Hey, you know which room Alvin Draper is in?”

The kid slid off his bed and walked up to the door. He scratched at the patchy beginnings of facial hair that covered his chin and neck. “Draper?”

“Yeah,” Jason held a hand up to his chin. “Around this high, seventeen, brown hair. Speaks with a know-it-all kind of voice that makes you want to punch him in the face.”

The boy’s face lit up with recognition. “Oh yeah, the misdiagnosed guy.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, when he first arrived he told me his name was Alvin. Seemed pretty normal for a paranoid guy. Then a few days after he starts seeing his psychiatrist, he has a panic attack in the common room and makes me promise to call him Tim. Says he’s not _really_ Alvin Draper. Don’t know how the doctors missed such an obvious case of dissociative identity disorder.”

 _Oh shit._ Jason just hoped that was the only thing Tim told this kid. If he had let his real identity slip under all the meds in here, the least of their problems would be dealing with reporters asking what made Tim Drake crack.

“So, where can I find him?”

“Basement level, down in the old wing of the hospital. Nobody’s used it for years— fire code violations or some shit— but Dr. Keselman uses it for the clinical sleep trial he’s working on.”

“Thanks.”

Jason turned to walk away.

“Hey! Wait, wait!” The kid tapped urgently on the door’s surface to get his attention.

Jason turned back, raising an eyebrow under his mask even though he knew the younger boy couldn’t see it. “Yeah?”

“Do you think you could get a letter to someone for me?”

“No ‘cause I’m not a fucking mailman.”

“No, just hear me out for a sec—”

Jason sighed. “Sure. I’ve only broken into a psych ward. Not like I’m on a time crunch.”

“It’s to my kid sister, man. They don’t let us keep our phones in here and my mom won’t answer any of my letters or bring her to visit me.”

Jason groaned. “Alright, hurry up. Slide it under the door.”

The kid flashed a smile and did as told. “I always thought you were cool. Scary… but cool.”

He was in the process of picking the letter off the ground when he noticed another girl waving a piece of paper at him from a few doors down.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Jason glanced back through the windows that looked into the general ward, checking that the halls were still clear for the moment. He took the risk and raised his voice to be heard down at the end of the line of rooms.

“Alright, everyone with a letter slide it under the door.”

He hurried back and forth across the hall and gathered the letters into one gloved hand. Then jabbed a finger at a few of the kids closest to him. “I’m making no promises about these, but I’ll try. Also, stay out of trouble and only do the drugs you’re prescribed.”

He slipped the stack of letters into his jacket pocket and hurried down the stairs towards the basement. “Yeah, I’m a real terror on the streets of Gotham. If I get any more like B I think I might just barf.”

He really couldn’t find Tim soon enough.


	2. Chapter 2

Jason was used to the regular haunts of Gotham City’s villainous community…  and let’s just say they had a track record with hospitals. Jason couldn’t really blame them for that. Gotham City had the insane— ha—  ability to turn the most normal of medical institution into a scene from a horror movie if a total of three elements were mixed together: a few years of custodial and/or janitorial neglect, faulty overhead lighting, and at least one crazy person. The basement level of Breckenridge Psychiatric Hospital had all three and an ancient package of Oreos abandoned on the last row of a vending machine. So… yeah, basically hell on earth.

Jason walked the half-lit halls with his leather jacket pushed away from his side and a hand rested over his sidearm, ready to free the strap that held it closed at the slightest provocation. He’d opted to keep his helmet on, relying on the heads up display and infrared lenses to help him navigate the dim lower levels without too many surprises.

“Dr. Keselman.” Jason shouted, hating the way his voice echoed down the hallway and throughout the empty rooms. The only thing that stirred was a fly weakly buzzing its last hours of life against the closed glass of a window, finally too stunned to do more than drop back down onto the sill.

There was a series of clangs far off. Like metal connecting with metal and definitely too forceful to be something falling over. Jason was in the process of extending the depth of his infrared lenses across in that direction when he heard the clangor of something heavy crashing to the ground. A second later two equally shrill voices started to scream over each other. The discordant shrieking made it impossible to tell what either of the two people were shouting, or if they were even words, but the cold clench that gripped Jason’s insides had him sprinting in their direction without a second thought. Because one of those voices belonged to Tim, if  vaguely— as if it came crackling out of the speakers of an ancient intercom.

The infrared view was a dizzying mess of purples and pinks at Jason threw himself down the cold and empty halls of the basement levels. Two sudden bright flares of yellow orange to his right were the only warning Jason got as to what he was running into before he entered the room.   

“Tim!” Jason skidded around the corner, switched off the infrared, and was greeted with a glimpse of Tim on the floor. One of his wrists was already free from the hospital bed restraints and he used it to yank savagely at the strap across his hips. Jason didn’t have time to take in any more information as someone barreled into him a second later.

Ah yes, that other blob of yellow in the infrared. _Good job, Jason_ . _Really on top of it tonight_.

Jason let himself fall backwards under the force of the other man’s bodyweight. They hit the tiled floor together and Jason flipped their positions and rolled a safe distance away before the shock of that tackle could get the better of him.

And a second later, it did. He groaned and pressed a hand to his aching tailbone as the other man stumbled to his feet and turned to face him with a look of unbridled rage.

“You’re ruining my experiment! For accurate results the environment of the experiment must not be tampered with.”

“Let me guess. Dr. Keselman?” Jason stood and adjusted his reinforced gloves so that the metal rested properly over his knuckles. He had a feeling he was going to be doing a lot of punching things in the next second and he wanted each hit to hurt. “I’m guessing you forgot about the ‘do no harm’ bit of that doctor’s oath, huh?”

The doctor snatched up a medical tray and swung it two handed at Jason’s head. Jason ducked and slipped under the doctor’s arms, coming up to land two solid hooks to the man’s head and torso. The doctor brought the tray down on his head and Jason let the blow connect with his helmet before he ripped the metal tray from the man’s grip and tossed it across the room. A strong sparring partner this guy was not. It was almost too easy to win a fight against him and that only served to anger Jason more, because he knew that Tim wouldn’t have even been vulnerable to an attack by this guy if he hadn’t been pumped full of drugs.

Jason punched the doctor in the face, watching as he stumbled back and crumbled to the floor with a hand to his bloody nose. Still unsatisfied, Jason crouched down and punched him again and repeated the process until his rage had dissipated from a boil to a bare simmer. The doctor’s moaned and curled in on himself on the dirty floor.

Jason moved to Tim, who’d apparently given up on the process of freeing himself in favor of sobbing while Jason’s back was turned.

“Oh fuck,” said Jason, because it was all too clear what the doctor had been experimenting on him with even from where Jason was standing. Fear toxin.

Jason knew from first hand experience the way that stuff paralyzed you with terror. The way it shook through your entire body, and made you doubt every thought that passed through your head as all your fears manifested themselves in front of your very eyes. Your friends become devils on your shoulders whispering in your ear all the things you fear the most about yourself. The demons from your past are resurrected from their long dead graves looking and feeling just as horrible as the moment you'd first encountered them. All you want for in the moment is for someone to tell you what to do. For someone to shape you into something that won’t be afraid anymore. Fear toxin isn’t something you overcome. It’s something you endure, alone in a corner, sobbing and screaming with your face pressed into your arms until the tide recedes.

Jason placed himself in Tim’s position for half a second and could imagine the way the restraints across Tim’s hips and ankles felt like Robin’s dead hands wrapped around his waist, pulling him back down into the dark soil of his grave even as he scrambled towards the light.

Jason shuddered and started loosening the straps. At the feeling of hands on him, Tim struck out at Jason, almost blindly, as if he were aiming at a Red Hood that loomed larger than the one crouched before him.

“Hey, hey! It’s me. Tim, it’s okay.” He words seemed to have no effect on the other boy.

Jason glanced at Doctor Keselman who was watching the scene in front of him raptly, but otherwise showed no intention of intervening. _Fuck this_ , thought Jason, as he removed his helmet and mask in quick succession. _Who cares if he knows my face and name, anyway. I’m legally dead and nobody is going to believe him._

“Tim, it’s Jason. I’m right here. You’re safe.” He freed Tim’s other wrist from its restraint and did nothing to stop Tim as he clutched at his body armor and stroked at Jason’s bare face.

“J...J-ason.”

“I’m right here, Tim. I’m not going to leave you.”

Jason continued talking as he worked on the other straps, hoping he could drown out whatever voices were shouting abuse inside Tim’s head. “Do you feel that? There was a strap across your waist that just fell away. Just hold on one more sec and I’ll remove the ones around your ankles. It’s just fear toxin messing with your head. I have an antitoxin in my utility belt.”

He pulled Tim until he could prop him up with his back against the tipped gurney. He jabbed the antitoxin into Tim’s leg and pushed the plunger.

Tim spasmed at the sudden pain of the injection and clutched tightly to Jason’s shoulder. But even after a full minute had passed there was no sign of change in Tim’s demeanor.

“Okay,” said Jason, with growing unease, “so it looks like the antitoxin isn’t working against this variety fear toxin.”

Tim clutched tighter at Jason’s shoulders and neck as his breathing picked up. _“Makeitstop—_ ” Tim gasped shallowly, _“Make it—Stop._ ”

“Tim, you’re hyperventilating. Try to breath deeply for me, okay?”

There was a wheezing laugh from behind him. “He needs his medicine.”

Jason turned around to stare viciously at the doctor.

“Shut the _fuck_ up!”

When he turned back around Tim’s eyes were streaming tears down his face. He clutched at his middle and doubled in half. His words were replaced with the wet croaking sound of his gasping breaths.

 _Please, just pass out,_ Jason prayed to himself silently, _it’s better than letting this go on_.

Tim’s fingers twitched once against Jason’s shoulder before he slumped headfirst into Jason’s chest.

Jason couldn’t help the sigh of relief that left him in that moment. He eased Tim back against the gurney and tried to settle him into a comfortable position. He knew unconsciousness was a temporary solution. It wouldn’t last long— a minute maybe two— before he regained consciousness and the fear toxin still in his system seized him again.

Jason riffled through his utility belt but all he had were two remaining capsules of the antitoxin to combat the latest version of Scarecrow’s fear toxin. He rolled them in his cupped hand and questioned the safety of sticking Tim with another one. He glanced around the room in the vain hope that the objects there held some secret solutions to his problem, but found nothing but the scribblings of a mad scientist reflected on a whiteboard in the corner.  

There was a thud behind him and Jason turned around in time to see Tim sprawled on his side, one hand clutching at the syringe of clear liquid the doctor had abandoned during their struggle.

“Tim, no!” Jason lunged and caught his wrist. “Are you crazy? You have no idea what this does!”

There were still tears flowing freely down Tim’s face but he pulled himself together enough to nod his head in a jerky fashion and pressed the syringe into Jason’s hand before pulling both closer to his exposed arm.

His breathing was harsh but not as frantic as it was before he’d passed out. Tim managed to choke out his instructions. “Find a vein. Inject it a-and get me h- home.”

Jason eyed it critically. Whatever it was, it wasn’t more fear toxin as that was always a sickly greenish-colored liquid that looked like it had been fished out of a sewer. He busied himself by rubbing his thumb over the skin of Tim’s arm in search of a vein as he racked his brain for a better solution. In the end though, Jason knew it came down to his trust in Tim and in his own ability to get them out of this alive afterwards.

“ _Please_ , Jay. Do it.”

Jason slipped the needle into a vein and pushed the plunger. He sat there for minutes in silent anticipation and it wasn’t until ten whole minutes later, when Tim’s eyes finally slipped closed and his breathing evened out, that Jason felt himself take a real breath.

Doctor Keselman pushed himself into a sitting position with a self-satisfied laugh. “I told you he needed his medicine.”

Jason was on him in a heartbeat, pining him to the nearest wall by his throat and choking off his laughter. “What the _fuck_ was in that syringe that I just gave him? Tell me now!”

“It would have taken too much of a toll for him to come down from the fear toxin before he needed to be returned to his ward. And the more he was exposed to the toxin, the longer the rest periods needed to be. It was impeding the timeframe of the experiment—”

Jason lifted him off his feet and slammed him against the wall again.

“Midazolam to counteract the hysteria produced from the toxin. It’s midazolam!”

Jason’s mouth was suddenly much drier than a moment ago, his tongue felt heavy as he forced out the words. “Benzos. You’ve been giving him—”

He shook his head in disbelief. “For how long?”

“Since the start of my experiment... Since he came here.”

“Oh, you stupid goddamn bastard!” Jason let him go and paced the room. His hands squeezed harshly against the panicked throb in his temples.

Jason eyed the inside of Tim’s elbows and forearms and now that he was looking for them, in the dim light he could pick out the track marks on his arms.

 _Please, Jay._ Jason replayed Tim’s words in his head and the way Tim was sure the injection would make it better. It was only now that Jason realized that Tim needed it not just to stop the anxiety and hallucinations, but to get his fix. _His medicine_.

Jason picked his mask and helmet up off the floor and placed them back on. He pulled his gun free of his side holster and aimed at the doctor’s head. “I’m gonna make sure you never get the chance to do this to another kid ever again.”

“Wait!” The doctor’s hands jumped up in front of his face. “Just, wait— ”

Jason pulled the trigger, holstered his gun, and picked Tim up into his arms. He didn’t glance once at the dead man in the corner as he carried Tim from the room.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey I had "This is the last time" by the National on repeat while writing this chapter. Do the same while reading it. I DARE YOU.

Jason emerged onto the parking garage level with Tim slung across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. With one hand keeping a tight hold on Tim’s limbs where they crossed his chest, Jason used his free hand to test the doors in a section of parked cars. He was more than a little relieved when one car door opened against his experimental yank. Tim was small but compact and Jason was panting under his weight. His recent decision to ditch his weight routine in favor of some added cardio during his weekly workout seemed a poor choice now.

Jason let Tim sprawl across the backseat and rolled out his sore shoulders. “Hey, Jason? Remember the good ol’ days when you had to chase Bane across half the rooftops in the Narrows? Betcha didn’t think you’d miss that, huh?”

Jason ducked his head under the dash and played with the wires until the car engine jumped to life with a mechanical purr. “Nowadays, patrols are all small peanuts—  impromptu rescue missions and copycat criminals— while Dickhead and the Demon Brat fry all the big fish in Gotham.” 

Jason pulled out onto the city streets and glanced in the rear view mirror at Tim. The kid was still asleep in the backseat— though now only partially tucked into the hospital blanket Jason had wrapped him in on the way out. “Eh. But maybe a change of pace will be good for you. Plus, it’ll be nice to have some company for once.”

Jason drove out of Bludhaven with equal amounts of speed and caution. After all, he’d just broken Tim out of a mental hospital that Dick had put him in. Breckenridge could sound the alarm bells at any moment and send word to Dickhead. Jason’s window of opportunity for an unnoticed getaway could slam shut right this very moment or it could last all the way till morning. Either way, Tim wasn’t in a good place to have a reunion with Dickhead and if the Red Hood got pulled over for a speeding ticket while driving a stolen car, it was only going to make it that much easier for Dick to track them down. 

Jason owed Tim for breaking him out of Arkham and that debt wouldn’t be fully repaid until Tim was secure inside Jason’s safehouse in Gotham Proper. It was completely on the other side of Gotham from their current location, not to mention, one of Jason’s least lived-in safehouses, but it was also one of the few areas of Gotham where Batman and Robin would be hard pressed to find them. Unofficially under the control of Killer Croc, the only reason Jason was allowed a safe-house there was through his friendship with Roy, and therefore by-proxy, Killer Croc who was Roy’s current sponsor.

With the underground network of low-grade criminals who lived there on the lookout, it was the closest thing that Jason was going to get to an early warning system. Jason made sure to flag down one of his usual informers and send out the word once he’d reached the Dixon Docks. As payment for services rendered, Jason gave the man his stolen car and carried Tim the rest of the way into the waterfront warehouse that hid his safe-house.     

* * *

Jason smacked some of the dust off of the couch before settling Tim down on top of it. While the kid slept, Jason made his rounds throughout the safehouse, checking the security measures and doing a bit of cleaning up along the way. He took stock of his medical supplies and the dry good in the kitchen cabinets and found both wanting. He’d need to put together a list and go shopping, but before he could do that he’d need to know what he was shopping for. Jason sighed and glanced over the back of the couch. From his faraway spot beside the kitchen counter, all that was visible of the successor to his mantle was a tangle of greasy hair and a single flung out arm, it’s pale skin marred by bruises and dirt alike. 

Jason tapped his index finger on the kitchen counter and chewed the inside of his cheek. He really didn’t want to be playing geriatric nurse— sponge bath and all, but he couldn’t figure a way around it. He needed to see the full extent of the damage. Otherwise, how could he fix it? 

_ Dick would do it _ , he reminded himself as he picked Tim up and carried him into the bathroom. Though, based on recent events, it seemed that Jason shouldn’t follow Dick’s example in all things where Tim was concerned. 

Jason cranked the shower up to hot and sat Tim down on the bath mat with his back resting against the wicker hamper. As the bathroom filled up with warm steamy air he pulled the blanket away from Tim’s shoulders and reached for the hem of his shirt. “Don’t punch me. Don’t punch me. Please please  _ please… _ ”

But Tim’s hands remained as limp as dead fish against the bathroom floor and Jason was able to remove the hospital shirt and sweatpants without any bodily harm. He stripped quickly down to his own briefs, eager to hurry this along as professionally as possible. Jason was just glad that he’d had the foresight to build a tiled bench into his shower when converting the space into a bathroom. While usually put to use when Jason was too battered to stand up straight, it was incredibly helpful to him now as he propped Tim against the ledge and angled the spray down on them. 

Jason knelt on the shower floor in from of him and angled Tim’s head forward to catch the spray. He nearly fell on his ass when Tim jerked awake under the warm water and struggled sluggishly to free his himself from Jason’s hold on his face. Jason was quick to tip Tim’s head out of the spray until he could meet Tim’s half-lidded gaze.

“It’s okay. Everything’s okay,” Jason stroked Tim’s cheek with his wet fingers and shushed him until his panicked noises subsided into a toneless murmur. “Are you with me? Tim?” 

Tim’s eyes drifted away from Jason’s face to the bar of soap on the shelf by Jason’s shoulder, but Jason knew he wasn’t really seeing it. A moment later Tim blinked once, tried for a second attempt only to fail.

“Timmy?” Jason slicked back the other boy’s wet bangs. “C’mon, stay awake. Please, I- I can’t—”  

Tim’s head dipped heavily into Jason’s palm. His murmuring slipped away into a silence that was soon drowned out by the hot water that pelted against Jason’s neck and back. 

Jason pressed his hand hard against his mouth and fought back the cry that threatened to spill past his tight-pressed lips. He swallowed it back, swatted his wet hair out of his eyes, and returned to his previous task of massaging the shampoo through Tim’s dark locks until the water ran clean. 

With washcloth in hand, Jason made methodical work of cleaning away the rest of the dirt and grime. Even with the filth washed away, the skin under Jason’s fingers gleamed back at him sooty and stained— like Japanese ink spilled across paper. A dark stain here at the thigh. There, along the slim column of Tim’s forearm, a long pale streak where the ink had thinned. On the inside of the elbows the tiny splatters from a bristle brush. 

_ They’ll heal _ , he reminded himself. Yet still he picked up the bath towel and wrapped Tim in it, hiding his bruised skin from view. He didn’t want to see it.

* * *

 

In the end it was all too much—  too much responsibility, too much of a painful trip down memory lane. 

Jason escaped to the roof and called Roy.  

The other man answered on the third ring and listened silently as Jason told him the whole messed up tale— right up until the moment in the bathroom when Jason felt like he’d crumble under the weight of his own memories.

“It’s nothing that I haven’t done before. I should have been able to handle it with ease, you know? But then… he woke up, just for a second, and stared right through me with those half-dead eyes. And they were her eyes, staring up at me through a drug haze.”

When Roy eventually spoke, his took on the same solemn tone of a funeral minister. And like Jason’s personal priest, one he’d spent years confessing his darkest secrets to, Roy knew exactly who he meant. “Your Mom?” 

“Yeah,” Jason smiled despite himself. “I never could get that image of her out of my head.” 

Roy’s sigh was audible on the other end of the line. “I know you feel you need to do this for Tim. To repay him. But I think it’ll do more harm than good for the both of you. Jason… you need to bring him to a rehab clinic.”

Jason stubbed out the cigarette he’d been working on and blew the smoke out harshly. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not? The people who work there are medical professional who can give Tim the attention and care he needs to get better.”

“Roy, no,” said Jason. “Dick put him in an institution and that’s how he got addicted in the  _ first _ place.”

“Fine, I can recommend you some of the places I was treated at and—”

“He was given fear toxin while in a closed ward, Roy. Placing him in another one might send him spiralling into an anxiety attack. I’ll treat him here, in a place that feels like a home, not a prison cell.”

“For  _ fucks sake _ , Jason! Don’t be an idiot. Do—” Roy cut himself off with a groan. 

“No, say it.”   

“I just- I don’t want you to be doing this as some messed up redo attempt with your mom. Look, you’re my best friend, Jason. I know you loved her and it killed you not being able to save her when she overdosed, but  _ this _ isn’t fair to Tim. You aren’t qualified to treat this on your own.”

“I know how to treat withdrawal, asshole. If I recall correctly, I’ve helped you through it on more than one occasion.”

“No— fuck— see this is what I’m talking about, Jason! Benzo addictions aren’t like other addictions. You can’t just cut Tim off from the drugs cold turkey. He could suffer a serious anxiety attack. He could  _ seize _ , Jason. You’re fucking around with things you know nothing about.”

“Then help me.”

“What? No, I can’t—”

“Help me. Come down for a day. Just to set up and make sure I know everything I need to do this correctly. Roy,  _ please _ .” 

“I—” Roy paused for so long that Jason feared he’d simply put down his phone and walked away. “I-yeah… alright. But, just one day. Promise?” 

Jason couldn’t keep the smile off his face as he tossed the remains of his cigarette over the edge of the roof. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”  


	4. Chapter 4

“Can I get you boys something to start off with? Drinks?”

Tim managed to turn his flinch into a nod of his head, though not before Jason caught the deliberate nature of the movement.

“Uh, yeah,” Tim cleared his throat but his voice still sounded just as hoarse as it had a moment ago. “Can I get a coffee, please? With creamer.”

Jason eyed him even as their waitress directed her attention at his profile, her pen held limply over her open notepad. He spoke without addressing her. “Just water for me, thanks.”

She turned away to go fetch their drink orders and Tim turned his gaze immediately towards the window beside their booth, not wanting to witness Jason’s mental assessment of him again.

He’d woken up on Jason’s couch an hour ago in new clothes that were a size too large for him and no idea how he’d gotten there. What he could remember from the night before felt more like a dream than it did reality, and most of it was more sound and sensation than anything else. Things like— the horrible throat-choking sensation of panic at the hospital when the fear toxin was coursing through his bloodstream. The vibrating hum of a car (stolen, he’d only later learned from Jason) mixed with the deep rumble and rise of Jason’s voice. Waking up had been an equally surreal experience as he opened his eyes to see Jason perched on the edge of the chair across from him, the sun setting a flaming orange through the window at his back.

And Jason had erupted into a strangely affectionate kind of excitement when he noticed Tim trying to push himself up onto his elbows, calling him ‘Timmy’ and then— as if sensing how out of character that was for him— quickly brushed it off with a clearing of his throat.

“Hey, kid,” he said, rubbing at the back of his neck. “How about we get something to eat? I’ve got to drop some letters in the mail anyway.”

So they’d walked the half mile from the docks to a diner that served an odd mixture of local workers and Gotham U students who lived off campus. The entire walk there, Tim could sense that Jason wanted to ask him a million questions, or perhaps was working out the best way to tell him something important. Sitting across from him now, though, in a booth with cracked leather cushions, he couldn’t help feeling like he was waiting to be ambushed.

The waitress returned, toting coffee and water. Tim poured cream and sugar into his coffee and stirred it together with the dented flatware spoon the diner offered, before setting it aside.

Jason reached across the table and plucked the mug from his saucer. He took a sip, absorbing the openly aghast expression Tim leveled at him over the rim of the mug while he did so.

He winced. “I could have done with a bit less sugar.”

Tim continued to stare at him, a flush breaking out across his cheeks. “What?”

Jason rolled his eyes and pulled Tim’s saucer towards him, placing in its spot his untouched glass of water. “Just drink some water, you miserable dehydrated fuck.”

To his own surprise, Tim’s lips twitched into a smile. Well that sounded a bit more like the Jason he knew, not this person sitting across from him that just a moment ago had struck him as Dick possessing Jason’s body from the other side of Gotham. He tried to hide his smile behind his glass as he took an obedient sip, but ultimately failed.

“What could _possibly_ be so amusing?”

“Nothing.”

Jason leaned forward over his interlocked fingers, eyebrows quirking up towards his hairline. “No, really. I’m dying to know.”

“You really need to stop with the dead-guy puns. It’s been six years.”

“Thanks for that input, kid. One quick question, though. Have you died? No? So, yeah shut up and tell me what’s so funny.”

Tim gave up the argument with a sigh. “Seriously, it’s nothing. Just— you were weirding me out before with how nice you were being to me. Glad we’re back to normal.”

Jason blinked like Tim had stuck his fingers in his water glass and flicked water in his face. He learned back against the booth cushions and tapped a sharp rhythm on the formica table with his thumb.

“Wow, that’s um— yeah, that’s really fucking insulting, Tim. To both of us.”

Despite his harsh words, his voice lacked any anger and it took Tim a second before he realized that something was wrong, confusion overriding his aches and fatigue in an instant. What had he said wrong now? It suddenly felt like all of his family members were finding fault with him and he was completely blind to it. “I didn’t—”

Jason held up a hand, shutting off his apology before he could even start.

“No, I get it. We were never that close, but I care about you. If I find you drugged out of your mind in a mental hospital, it’s ‘normal’ for me to act freaked out and concerned the next day. And it’s ‘normal’ for you to take a day— or a week, hell take a fucking month— to digest that shit before acting like everything is fine again.”

“I know that—”

“Do you?”

Tim took a breath, trying to force some conviction into his voice. The world around him still felt overly bright and glassy, like street lights reflected on wet pavement, and despite his best efforts he found his mind pulling away if he didn’t put the full weight of his attention on Jason and the words coming out of his mouth. “Yes.”

He wanted to elaborate more—felt like he owed it to Jason and to himself to explain his side of it all while somebody finally gave him the chance, but at that moment their waitress returned. They were so deep into their own private conversation that her arrival startled them both with enough force to jerk them away from each other to their own separate sides of the booth. If anyone else in the place was paying attention it would have looked like they were up to no good. But neither the tired-looking waitstaff nor the worn-down clientele paid them even a glance up from their plates. The apathy of this place hit Tim all at once and it was reassuring in a way Tim couldn’t put into words. He felt himself shedding his protective layer like a snake would it’s skin.

Jason ordered a plate of fries for them to share and waited in patient silence until they were slid onto the middle of the table before he continued their previous conversation.

“I know you’re used to getting into rough situations,” began Jason with a wave of his hand. “It comes with the job, but this isn’t something that you can just bounce back from. You’re going to have to detox and even after that you might still need to go to meetings and see a sponsor.”

Tim’s fingers tightened around his water glass. His mouth was dry but he was too nervous to take a sip, afraid of what Jason’s next words would be. “I know that this is a lot to take on, but I just want you to know that I’m not expecting anything from you. I’m 17, old enough to make my own decisions and I have an apartment in my name. I already have the emancipation documents ready there—”

“Woah, _hey_ save the speech. I didn’t sell you out to Dickhead. I’m offering to let you stay at my place.”

“You are?”

“Well, yeah. I mean…” Jason shrugged a leather clad shoulder. “If you can swallow your pride for a little bit, I’ve got a free couch and some experience with this. Enough to help you through the worst of it...should you want that.”

Tim picked up a fry and broke it in half as he took in this new information. He broke those pieces down into smaller bits, afraid to lift his eyes and meet Jason’s gaze when he spoke with such tenderness. “You’d do that for me?”

“Well, I can’t let you go through it alone—Roy would kill me— and I won’t let you continue to use, so… yeah. The decision was simple.”

It was decidedly _not_ a simple decision, but looked at with Jason’s mindset—  with his background and his past teammates— it really did seem that way. Tim took a moment to admire the way that Jason approached breaking free of a drug addiction the way other people did replacing a busted tire. He just rolled up his sleeves and did it.

* * *

 

They stayed at the diner awhile before finally getting up to leave. Enough time for Jason to fill in the gaps in Tim’s memories and explain the reason behind Roy’s trip down to the safehouse he shared with Jason in Gotham Proper. Tim waited and watched the cars rushing past out the dark window as Jason stepped away to call Roy to come pick them up.

When it was time to go, Tim watched from a step or two behind as Jason paid for their barely-touched meal. There was a clatter as Jason scooped a handful of spare change out of his front pocket.

“Aw hell,” muttered Jason, hurriedly trying to corral the spinning dimes and nickels before they tumbled off the edge of the cashier's counter.

Tim's eyes followed the reeling progress of a rust colored penny, feeling his world sway and lurch with each full spin it took across the counter. He ran a shaky hand over the damp sweat of his upper lip.

Despite the water that Jason had forced on him earlier, his mouth was as dry as sawdust as he open it to call out Jason's name. Something was very wrong, but he found himself struck mute in the face of it. That watery, half present sensation had amplified inside Tim and it was only now that he was standing upright that he realized how untethered he felt to the world around him. The diner interior looked more like a backdrop abandoned on a production lot during a sudden storm. Around him the room contorted, the bright neon and chrome streaking as the canvas twisted and snapped to and fro.

Jason slapped his hand down on the penny, and Tim shoved at the door behind him, stumbling out into the blessed cool of the parking lot.

“Tim? Hang on a sec won't you—”

Jason came up behind him right as he leaned against a parked car and vomited onto the black asphalt beside the front tire. There wasn’t much in his stomach to cough up except a few partially digested fries and a trail of watery bile. Even after that had come up Tim continued to dry heave, working his already sore throat. Jason’s hands came up to brace him at his shoulder and hip.

“Deep breaths.”

One of his hands moved to rubbed against Tim’s back. When he finally stopped retching, Jason walked him over to sit on the sidewalk with his back against the diner wall.

“Something’s wrong,” Tim’s hands were shaking where they rested on his knees. He tried to curl his fingers into fists, but it did nothing to stop his trembling. “Wrong. Jason, what—”

“Shh,” Jason had an arm wrapped around his shoulders and his head tucked against his temple so his voice drowned out the street noise and electrical hum of the diner’s neon lighting. “Don’t work yourself into a panic. It’s just the beginnings of withdrawal. You slept for a day and a half. No drugs since I pulled you from Breckenridge.”

“Oh, c’mon!” A man cried behind Jason. “That’s disgusting.”

As Jason turned to look over his shoulder, Tim peeked around him to see a man standing over the mess he’d made a moment ago against a parked car. As if sensing his eyes on him, he turned to glare at the two of them sitting on the walkway. The man took in Tim’s pale shaky form, the sick stain on his too long shirt sleeves and the way he clutched his middle.

Tim dropped his gaze hurriedly to the pavement, already knowing what the man saw in him.  

“Yes?” snapped Jason, standing.

The man shook his head in disgust and turned away, but not before spitting just loud enough for them to hear, “Fucking junkie.”

“Hey, shit-for-brains!” Jason called, bringing the man to a stop. Tim had to tilt his head way back against the bricks to see Jason's face from where he sat and from that far up, Jason towered over him like a protective god, his head haloed in fluorescent pink. “He’s not a fucking junkie. He’s got the fucking stomach bug. You ever heard of it? What kinda horrible person do you have to be to go around throwing out insults like that at a sick kid? He’s been on the bathroom floor puking his brains out for three days, hasn’t eaten more than a packet of crackers, and I was just trying to take him out for some fresh air and see if he could hold something down. Screw me for being a good big brother, I guess right?”

“Hey, man,” He put his hands up defensively. “I didn’t know. It’s just around here we get a lot of addicts and alcoholics that hang around—”

“ — Yeah, save it, asshole. Why don’t you make yourself useful and grab some napkins and mints from the cashier.”

“Yeah, yeah. ‘Course.” He ran back in to fetch them and Jason snatched them out of his cupped hands the moment he offered them to him.

“Here,” Jason split the wad of napkins down the middle and handed half back to him. “Clean off your car and get the hell away from us.”

The man was gone in record time, reversing quickly out of his spot and speeding out onto the street.

Jason watched his tail lights recede for a moment before he returned to stand over him. He offered Tim a mint.

“You didn’t have to do that,” said Tim. “He _was_ right.”

Jason pulled a face and pocketed the spare napkins in his jacket pocket. “Yeah, but nobody ever said he had to be a judgemental asshole about it.”

A pair of headlights arced across the parking lot, partially blinding them for a moment. Ah, finally, Roy was here. Tim stood only to sway heavily into Jason’s shoulder and quickly found Jason’s hand slipping under his armpit to hold him steady.

Roy stepped out of the car, red hair tied up in a messy bun and wearing a pair of worn out jeans and a shirt wrinkled from sitting in the driver’s seat for part of the day. “Did I miss something interesting? Some guy just tore ass coming out of here.”

Jason waved a hand dismissively but said nothing.  

“Well, I’m glad to see you’ve kept him alive this long.”

“Yeah, but if he faints again you’re carrying him into the safehouse. Don’t let his size fool you, the kid’s nothing if not dense.”

Roy laughed and held open the door to the backseat for them. “C’mon, Jaybird. Let’s get him home.”


	5. Chapter 5

As Roy drove them back to the safehouse, casually inquiring about some recent news stories that he’d seen coming out of Gotham, Tim stared out the back window feeling spacey and drunk. He squinted at the passing buildings and the brilliantly illuminated billboards, but couldn’t focus his eyes enough to read any of the signs and advertisements before they streaked past him into the gloomy distance. 

“Could you turn up the heat?” Tim asked, acutely aware that Roy had complied with this same request only five minutes earlier. While the cool spring air had felt like a relief from the stuffy diner only a moment ago, Roy’s car seemed to trap in the cold air despite the number of bodies in the car radiating heat. Though it was a lie, Tim was almost starting to believe the story Jason had sold to the stranger in the parking lot. He really did feel sick; suffering from clammy palms and brisk shivers seemingly all at once. 

Tim caught the flash of Roy’s eyes in the rearview mirror but it was hard to tell who his concerned gaze was directed at. Perhaps, both of them, thought Tim. He knew his withdrawal symptoms were getting worse and would only continue to get worse until his body recovered from its current chemical imbalance. 

“Hey, Tim,” Jason slid off his leather jacket. “Take my jacket instead.”

He pressed Tim forward slightly with a hand between his shoulder blades so he could flip it over Tim’s shoulders. 

“You sure?” he asked, though his fingers were already curling into the smooth brown leather and pulling it tighter around his frame. He felt bad taking Jason’s jacket since he was already wearing a pair of Jason’s old sweats as it was, but he didn’t know if he could play down his reluctance if Jason changed his mind and asked for it back.

Jason smiled, with a hint of knowing humor. “Yeah, I think I overdressed. That’s my bad, I never know how to dress in the spring. One moment it’s cold and windy, the next it’s raining and it’s up 15 degrees.”

Roy pulled the car around to the back of the safehouse and into one of the old loading areas previously used for stocking shipping trucks. While the trucks had been cleared out when the facility went out of business, it seemed Jason still put the space to good use as a makeshift garage. As Jason slipped out of the back to pull the rolling steel door down behind them and lock it with chain and padlock, Tim caught sight of Jason’s motorcycle propped up on its kickstand across the room, part of it’s red trim visible under the sheet covering it.

Tim pointed a thumb back over his shoulder at it as Jason straightened up from the floor. “How come you didn’t take the bike to come find me?”

Jason laughed and shared a smile with Roy over the roof of the car. “Oh, man, wouldn’t that have been a sight! Me trying to make a discreet getaway with your skinny ass flopping around all unconscious over the handlebars.”

“I’m pretty sure we’ve pulled off bigger stunts than that with just a motorcycle,” said Roy. “I’m sure you could have made it work.”

“Wouldn’t have mattered. Bike’s in the shop after a nasty run-in with Clayface. I’ve got to take the whole thing apart and clean it piece by piece before I can see if it’ll even run again. Who knows, might have to buy a new engine if there’s clay in there as well.”

Roy whistled, “ _ Damn _ , Basil.”

“If you’re taking it apart anyway, I could make some upgrades to the tech. If you want, that is?” offered Tim.

Jason walked over to him and didn’t stop until he was close enough for Tim to smell the faint lingering scent of coffee on his breath as he exhaled a tired smile. He reached out and tugged his jacket by the collar so it rested further onto Tim’s smaller form. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m poor.”

“No, I’m offering to work for free.”

Jason rolled his eyes before leading the way out of the loading area and up the concrete stairs to what had been converted into the first floor living area of the safehouse. “I know, but I wouldn’t be able to afford the tools you’d need to make anything with. Circuit boards, soldering iron, electricals wires that kind of shit.”

And Tim was beginning to understand what Jason was talking about as he looked around the first floor. It was comprised of three loosely formed sections. The first area was a living room consisting of a worn-looking leather couch, a threadbare rug, and a small TV propped on top of a stack of wooden crates turned sideways to double as a bookcase. Next to this was a workspace that was just a wooden table with three Mac desktop computers placed on top and an office chair in front. Finally, in the back corner of the large space was the kitchen (probably the most lavishly furnished area out of all three sections of the first floor) sporting a butcher block table, a dangling array of pots and pans, and floating cabinets stocked with chipped coffee mugs, plates and bowls, and your grandmother’s finest depression glassware in all it’s emerald greens, deep blues, and salmony pinks. 

Tim, honestly, stood there in shock at such an eclectic sight of homegoods and turned away from it to look around, if only to spare his eyes. He caught sight of a bin shoved against a wall next to a bank of windows. 

“Why do you keep a bin full of your broken Red Hood helmets? Do you fix those up as well?”

Jason came up next to him and offered him a glass of water in a decoratively cut salmon tumbler. “Oh, I sell them off to Red Hood fans as ‘found artifacts’ on Ebay. I usually can get a couple hundred for the heavily dented ones. Maybe a solid fifty bucks if it’s shattered and missing certain parts.”

“Oh, you still do that?” asked Roy, coming over and taking the glass of water Tim had waved off. He drank heavily from it before continuing. “I tried that for a bit but nobody really cares about destroyed baseball caps, even if I do specify that they were cut in half by alien death lasers.” 

Tim glanced between them, thinking only of how horrified Bruce would be if he learned about this side hustle Jason had going. “But… aren’t you worried about people getting access through your old comm links inside the helmets?”

Jason made a face. “No. I rip out the comms myself before I sell them. I’m not stupid, Tim. I just have bills to pay. Welcome to the vigilante life without Bruce Wayne’s trust fund to fall back on.”

Without Tim even noticing, his trembling had subsided for a period. It was only now, as he felt a chill race up his arms, the hair bristelling, that he realized another spell had started up again. Tim stumbled back so he could lean back against the edge of the butcher block table on trembling arms, he sucked in a sharp breath in an effort to steady his sudden nausea. 

“Hey guys, I— ” Tim looked up towards the two older boys and regretted it almost immediately as the room lurched and sparkled with pinpricks of light.

“Tim? You good?” Roy’s eyebrows were drawing together as he gave him a once-over.

That growing buzzing in his ear was rising high enough to block out whatever Roy was trying to say to him. He tried to shake his head no, but found his head just as uncooperative as his tongue. He was aware of the heavy weight of his limbs, a feeling like he was sinking into mud, and of Roy’s sudden appearance at his side as he took Tim’s dead weight over his shoulder and half dragged him up the stairs. They laid him down on a narrow bed, and Tim watched Roy and Jason as they stood over him arguing with sharp gestures and vivid expressions, a tv drama with the sound cut off. 

He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. He felt like some large invisible hand had dropped out of the sky and pinned him to the mattress. Tim was used to fainting from blood loss: the dizzy spells, the loud thump of blood in his ears, the weakness in his limbs, he had experienced it all before. But this sensation lingered for so long that Tim feared he’d suffocate under the crushing weight bearing down on his chest. 

Roy cut off his argument in mid sentence and looked sharply down at Tim. Perhaps he’d made some sound of distress without knowing it? Before he could ponder it further, Roy’s strong fingers were digging into his shoulder and pulling him up and over the side of the mattress, pushing Tim’s head down between his knees.

Tim was surprised by how quickly the worst of his symptoms abated after that. He experimentally tried to move his hand and watched as his fingers gave a hard twitch against his bent knee. Noise, too, was slowly creeping back into Tim’s ears. He definitely wasn’t back to normal, but it was significantly better. 

“ — I’ve got some Benzos from a dealer I’m familiar with. Pills— he didn’t have whatever Tim was given at Breckenridge on hand. But what was I supposed to do? I had no idea how much to give him and he was unconscious at the time.”

Roy grunted, fingers sliding free of Tim’s hair.  “Could have gotten him tested when he woke up. A urine sample at least.”

“Listen,” snapped Jason, his jean-clad legs visible from Tim’s upturned position. Tim watched him shift his weight onto his other foot and then back again just as fast. “I was just happy he  _ did _ wake up. Do you want me to go get the pills? I can get them they’re right—” 

There was a sudden burst of movement and Jason cut off abruptly. Tim raised his head, curious. Roy had seized at one of Jason’s gesturing hands, stilling it in a tight urgent grip. “Don’t tell me where you keep them and don’t tell him.”

Roy’s eyes cut to Tim. He swallowed hard when he caught sight of the look in Roy’s eyes— a look that showed that Roy knew just what he was capable of losing to another relapse if given half the chance. 

“Go get it from wherever you’re keeping it, but it stays in your hand or locked away at all times. Do you understand me? No matter what I say to you. You never hand those drugs to me and you never put them down out of sight.” 

Tim wondered what it was like to be so distrustful of your own body and its cravings. To feel like human and demon cohabitating one frail form. The demon half— resistant to exorcisms— always waiting for the perfect opportunity to take control of your limbs and lead you into disgrace if you let down your guard. Tim was beginning to understand why addiction organisations had adopted the serenity prayer into the very fabric of their programs.  

Jason pried his wrist free of Roy’s hold and attempted to rub away the lingering pattern Roy’s fingers had left around his wrist like a bracelet. “I’ve got it, man. I promise I won’t let you get tempted.”

Roy shoved up to his feet. “No I  _ will _ be tempted, Jason. This whole fucking situation is one big horrible temptation for me. Which is why I shouldn’t be here!”

“Then why did you come, huh?”

“I came because you asked me! Because you’re my best friend and I was worried sick about what would happen if I left you on your own with this. I mean, just look at him, Jason— ”

Tim cringed as Roy flung an hand in his direction. 

“ — It’s only been a day and a half and already you’re doing so well!”

Jason wouldn’t be swayed from his original argument, even to defend his own actions.

“You came to Gotham because you wanted to help. No just for _ one day _ , not just to set up, but to really help Tim— to help the both of us when we’re days into this mess of a situation and worn down by it. You know the process better than anyone and how to help on the worst of Tim’s days because you’ve experience it too.” 

“I can’t do it, Jason. I can’t be responsible for someone else’s recovery—” 

“You know just as well as I do that sponsoring someone else is the best way to stay clean. And your sponsor is closer to you now more than ever. If you need more support to fall back on Croc’s—”

“Do not spit that NA bullshit at me right now! I’m not ready to sponsor anyone when I feel like I’m one misstep away from using again.”

Jason’s tone had lost its anger but not it’s earnestness. “You’ve been clean for three years, Roy. You’ll ready to take the next step.”

“You don’t get to decide that for me.” said Roy. 

“I know,” said Jason. “I’m just presenting you with the opportunity to step up to it.”

Roy dropped his gaze to a stack of books piled up in the corner. He rubbed slowly at his crossed arms. “Just—” he sighed, hand rubbing at his eyes. “Just go get the pills, please.”

Jason stared at Roy’s averted back for a long moment before turning and heading back downstairs. The sounds of objects being shifted around floated up to them in the echoing space of the safehouse. 

Roy said nothing. 

Though he hadn’t been yelling at him, Tim felt called out by his previously harsh words all the same. He dropped his eyes to the floor, not daring to move until he heard Jason thumping up the metal staircase, feeling burdensome and unworthy of causing such a rift between a two longtime friends like Jason and Roy. He was dirt— less than dirt, even. Should he just take the pills and leave? Trudge back to his apartment, file the emancipation papers, and ride this out alone with the doors locked and the shades pulled down until he was clean? Save everyone the trouble. 

Would Jason even let him? He’d said no, but maybe it Tim really pleaded with him...

He couldn’t hide the fact that the prospect of setting out on his own, in his current condition, scared him more than anything. He was vulnerable in a way he’d never been before, and doors and locks would do nothing to stop Ra’s and his men from coming to collect him if Ra’s wanted to. The only thing that Tim had previously had going for him when he was locked away in Breckenridge under a false alias, was the knowledge that Ra’s didn’t know where he was— but sick and alone at home was another matter entirely.

Jason appeared at the top of the stairs and approached Tim, a tiny plastic bag filled with little white pills in one hand, a glass of water in the other. By the time Jason crouched down in front of him, Tim’s heart was pounding an aching thump inside his chest and his stomach was coiled tight with knots.  

“Just give him one for now, just to ease his symptoms.” said Roy from the corner of the room. 

“Here, Tim. Take this,” Jason said. 

Tim felt ready to die from his panic. He stared between the single pill resting in Jason’s palm and the pills inside the small bag, counting how many were there. He was afraid to take the one Jason offered out to him— afraid of prolonging this process, and at the same time he wanted to tear bag out of Jason’s hand and tilt a few into his fist and swallow, to drown out the world until it faded into a tiny buzz at the back of his head. Something that he could ignore for a bit until he felt more up to it.

“I’m sorry!” Tim burst out all at once. He curled inwards, pulling his legs up onto the mattress, unsure of when exactly he’d started crying. But his breaths came heavy and ragged and the tears in his eyes washed out Jason from view.

“Hey, hey,” Jason had put down the glass and Tim found himself pulled against Jason’s chest, his face awkwardly pressed against Jason’s breast. “Shh, it’s gonna be okay, Tim. Here just take this and you’ll calm down a bit.”

Jason slipped a pill past his lips and tipped his head back to catch a sip of water. Tim swallowed reflexively, mostly afraid that he might choke on the pill if he didn’t with the way his chest was spasming through sobs. Jason pulled him close again and Tim heard but couldn’t make sense of the murmuring conversation that occurred between Roy and Jason, for it sounded horribly technical and out of place with what Tim was feeling in that moment. He was transported back to Breckenridge, remembering the constricting sensation of orderly’s hands pinning his own to his sides, a needle sticking into him, and the voices of a station nurse and his doctor exchanging notes over his head that sounded like they came straight out of a medical textbook.

_ What do you mean? _ Tim wanted to cry at them but he could already feel himself slipping down into the mattress beneath him. Jason’s hands tucked a blanket around his shoulders and then they were gone.

And then he was gone.

* * *

Jason left the safehouse, and in that moment he felt that it was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do.

Only minutes ago, he’d looked down at Tim, tucked under a blanket with tear tracks still staining his ruddy cheeks, looking younger than Jason had ever remembered seeing him. Just a kid, a horribly fucked up kid that Jason was trying to save.  

“You need to go back to Breckenridge,” Roy urged. “Keselman’s office is the only place we have that could give us the record of Tim’s dosages.”

“Go back to an active crime scene? Are you kidding me? I might as well walk myself into a Bludhaven police station.”

“It’s suicide.” Jason stressed for added effect since it seemed like Roy wasn’t getting that. 

 “Not necessary,” said Roy, “You killed him in the basement where he was working off the books. Those notes might have been overlooked as irrelevant by the detectives at the time.”

Jason’s eyes lingered on Tim. 

Roy stood up from his crouched position on the edge of Tim’s bed and walked over to Jason. He gave his shoulder a squeeze. “He’ll be fine. I’ll be right here to look after him.”

“But the pills— you said you couldn’t— what if he needs more—”

“He’ll be fine with what we gave him for now. It’s enough to take the edge off and help him sleep for a bit.”

Jason nodded, if begrudgingly and went to get changed into his full gear for he was unsure what he would find waiting for him back in Bludhaven. With the pills safely locked at of reach, Roy tossed him his car keys and Jason drove towards Bludhaven with his utility belt and helmet resting next to him in the passenger seat. He parked the car a few blocks away on a side street with little traffic and slipped into the rest of his gear under the shadow of a broken streetlight. 

From his previous research of the psychiatric hospital Jason understood the medical offices to be on the upper levels and on the other side of the facility from where patients were housed. Jason guessed the idea was to keep patient and visitor interactions as separated as possible unless visitations had been scheduled. Much like, Jason thought with dark irony, the way a prison facility was arranged. 

But even with that thought lingering in the back of his mind, Jason was glad for the enforced separation since it meant that Jason was able to stay far away from the added security and police tape that blocked off the lower levels that Jason had explored the night before. 

He entered the building through a service door whose locked he picked with ease. Then came the slipping and ducking again, this time past the doors of the medical staff— their office aglow in overhead lighting as they busily held conference with other psychiatrists or typed away at their papers. Jason found himself having to duck low under the windows placed in their doors so his shadow couldn’t be seen moving past. 

When Jason found Doctor Keselman’s office, he saw that Roy’s argument had held up. While the doctor’s office wasn’t the prime scene of investigation, it had still been picked over by the detectives on the case. The sheer mess of paperwork and empty filing cabinets was enough to tell Jason that. But even still, much of the doctor’s paperwork and patient files remained. 

Alvin Draper’s file, however, was not among the stack on the floor. Jason stood and surveyed the room with a critical eye, humming the jeopardy theme song to hurry along his slugging and distracted brain. It was hard to focus on anything in particular in the current darkness of the space but he dared not turn the lights on and risk attracting curious eyes to a dead man’s office. 

 “If I was a mad scientist where would I hide my notes?” Jason asked himself, his hands sliding underneath the bottoms of the desk drawers, hoping to find a hidden cache. Jason picked open locked drawers and slid the couch away from the wall, but continued to find nothing but lost paperclips and dust bunnies. 

He let his head fall back against the arm of the couch with a thud, staring disparagingly up at the water stains overlapping on the ceiling tiles and contemplating his remaining options. “If I have to go back down to that creepy fucking basement again there’s gonna be another murder I swear to god.”

Jason tilted his head to the right and squinted. “Oh, don’t tell me he did a Breaking Bad. What a fucking idiot.”

Jason jumped up and grabbed one of the guest chairs from around the front of the desk and dragged it up again the wall. He stepped up onto it and as quietly as he could, worked the screws out of the wall vent with the back of his knife, collecting them into the cup of his palm. He pulled the cover off of the vent, his breath held tightly in his chest, hoping beyond hope that it didn’t make any noise. Jason crouched down and laid it on top of the desk before shining a light up into the vent.

The sight that greeted him made his heart soar for deep at the back, duct-taped in place, was a clear case holding a series of papers and an audio recorder. Jason shoved his arm into the vent and ripped it from its hiding spot. 

Standing over the desk with it, he cracked it open and skimmed through the papers tucked inside. Scanned copies of Alvin Draper’s medical records— pulled straight from his file and promptly returned as if nothing was amiss, handwritten pages full of calculations and notes, and finally tucked underneath it all a small field notebook. Jason unwound the cord ties and flipped through it hungerly, feeling excited— in a way that would have almost made him feel uncomfortable if he’d stopped for long enough to think about it— as his eyes skimmed down through the diary entries noting the strategic increases in the listed dosages and their side effects. 

Jason stared down at the final entry, dated only a few days ago, for a long time. He tried to wrap his head around the last noted dosage that Tim had been given while mentally comparing it with the one on the first page of the journal. His mind drifted back to the scene that he’d left unresolved in his safehouse, pushing away the background noises of the stirring papers on the desk and the the tick of the wall clock at his back, in favor of recalling how quickly Tim’s panic had increased to the point of spilling over into a panic attack. 

 Jason’s thoughts jumped backwards with a jolt. Stirring papers… he’d placed them on the desk but he hadn’t open the window— 

Jason jerked his gaze up from the notebook and found Damian’s katana drawn and held ready to cut his face in half. Dick, in Batman’s suit, was just slipping his other foot over the window sill and straightening up to regard him. “ _ Motherfucker _ .”

“Where is he, Jason?” Dick growled in his best Batman voice. Close, he thought, but not nearly as intimidating. “Where’s Tim?”

Jason tucked the notebook into an inside pocket of his jacket. He held up his hands, arms spread wide in a gesture of peace. 

“Okay,” he said. “So here’s the thing—”

He flung the chair he’d been standing on at Damian’s chest and bolt for the door. 


	6. Chapter 6

Jason bolted out onto the hospital rooftop through the access door, jumping the pipes, ventilation ducts, and skylights as he made a straight shot towards the roof’s ledge. He slipped his helmet on and shot out his grappling line, catching it around an office building across the street before jumping. He didn’t fall for long as his line snapped tight, drawing him up and over to the other building’s higher roof. It was imperative that he get to higher ground if he wanted to stand any chance of an escape via the rooftops of Bludhaven. But he’d barely cleared the hospital parking lot before a Birdarang flashed in the moonlight above him and cut his line. 

Jason sucked in a panicked breath as his heart flip-flopped into his stomach with the sudden change of direction. He curled into himself and performed a painful tuck and roll onto the harsh concrete of a lower roof, jarring his shoulder and rattling his head inside his helmet in the process. 

Jason heard the zip and clang of a line being shot behind him and pushed up onto his feet, flinging himself onto the next rooftop with the aid of his spare grappling gun. Enough rooftop brawls with the big man in the past had taught Jason to always carry a spare, or two. It seemed that Damian had inherited his father’s dirty habit of line cutting. Jason should have guess that the apple wouldn’t fall far from the rotten fucking tree.  

He made it across five more buildings before something lashed around his ankles and tripped him up. He pitched face first into the concrete, smashing his helmet hard enough that his heads-up display dissolved into a flickering mass of pixels. 

“Another one bites the dust,” he growled, chucking the helmet away and making hasty work with his knife on the cords around his ankles. Not quick enough, he thought, as he stood up just in time to duck one of Robin’s flying kicks to his now exposed head. 

Jason flipped his knife around, slashing backhand at Robin’s neck and stomach. Damian lunged up under his arm and jabbed him in the armpit. Jason’s hand spasmed and his knife fell through his numb fingers and bounced on the ground between them. 

Jason pulled a gun, but Damian was faster— his katana scratching at the unshaven stubble on Jason’s neck before he could even release the safety on his gun.

Jason stilled, breathing hard. There was no use continuing to try to run or fight, he knew they’d just continue pursuing him. “You owe me a new helmet.”

Damian shrugged one shoulder. “If you hadn’t run from us you’d still have it. I think that makes it your fault, not mine.”

There was a rush of air to Jason’s right as Dick landed in a swish of black material. 

“Where’s Tim, Jason?” 

He turned to glare at him. “Safe from you. I think that’s all you need to know for right now.”

Dick uttered a noise akin to a growl, his voice a deep rumble as he said, “If you’ve done something to him, Jason, I swear to god I’ll—”

  Jason used the gun to wack Damian’s katana away from his neck with a clang of metal on metal. He’d quickly grown tired of the sensation of it pressed against his skin. “Why don’t you shout my name a little louder, huh! I don’t think all of Gotham heard you yet. Wouldn’t want to leave out all those criminals in Arkham. You’d really make their day.”

“Is this a joke to you? I’m trying to find my brother.”

“What makes you think he wants to be found?” Jason countered.

“Tell us where he is, Hood,” Damian demanded, “Or I’ll get the information out of you another way.”

Jason caught the rise of his arm and leveled a finger at him, spitting, “Don’t you dare even  _ think _ about sticking that katana back in my face, you goddamn  _ chihuahua  _ of a human being.”

Damian face scrunched in confusion. “Chihuahua? What the hell does that even mean?”

“Oh, I think you know. Yappy, stupidly aggressive, makes you want to punt them into the sun.” Jason smiled menacingly at him. “Now, shut up, the adults are talking.”

 “Oh yeah, you’re really proving to me that you have the welfare of the young in mind, right now.” snapped Dick. 

Jason laughed harshly. “Oh, I see! You think I’m a horrible person for talking to the demon brat like that. Well, I think it might be a good idea for you to stomp down on that judgemental attitude right now, yeah Dickie? Because from where I’m standing, I don’t look so bad. I mean… at least I didn’t lock my teenage brother in a psych ward against his will and leave him there to be experimented on by a goddamn psycho scientist who gave him a drug problem!”

Jason really wanted to get in his face and shove him on his ass, but it seemed his words had the same effect as Dick rocked back a step. “A— What?”

“Oh, yeah. That shit’s on you. His ‘guardian’ who washed his hands of him the second he became too much of an inconvenience.”

Jason shoved Damian out of the way and went to retrieve his belongings, intent of leaving the two assholes he called family alone to sort out their shit without him. 

“Jason, wait. I just want to understand!”

Jason looked back over his shoulder at Dick. “You want to understand? Go listen to Keselman’s tapes. Then maybe you’ll understand just a  _ fraction _ on the nightmare that Tim went through  and is still going through.”

Jason turned and left, knowing it wouldn’t be the last he saw of his brother. He just hoped he could keep him away from Tim for a little while longer. Otherwise, he didn’t know what would happen.  

 

* * *

 

It was late morning by the time Tim awoke from his stupor, his parched tongue smoothing cautiously over the cracked skin of his bottom lip. He cringed at the coppery taste, like pennies. He found the glass of water that Jason had left by the foot of his bed and chugged down what little remained. Hearing the clatter of pans from below and catching the whiff of coffee in the air, he slipped downstairs on sock-clad feet.  Squinting against the bright sunlight coming in through the many windows along the first floor, he made his way into the kitchen. 

He’d half expected to see Jason and Roy sitting on opposite sides of the kitchen table recounting fond memories over coffee and eggs, but all he found instead was Roy in front of the stovetop, flipping an omelette in a fry pan.  

“Where’s Jason?”

Roy flinched. The spatula jerked across the surface of the fry pan before he righted it enough to slide his omlette off onto his plate. It was only then that Roy turned to him, plate in hand, the air of forced nonchalance present in every feature Tim’s eyes landed on. What other more subtle emotions he was putting out, Tim couldn’t figure out at the moment (as it took more concentration than his brain could muster up).

“He went out to gather some intel last night but hasn’t gotten back yet. Probably decided it was just best to crash at another safehouse then hike it all the way back here.”

Tim hitched his body up onto one of the bar stools positioned around the table. “All the way back here? Where was he going?”

Roy cleared his throat. “Bludhaven.” 

“So Breckenridge,” Which only served to highlight how his continued presence was in Jason’s life was complicating things. “Which is why you’re so worried, right? With Batman and Robin undoubtedly out looking for me, if they caught sight of him there last night there’s a chance he could lead them right to us.”

“I’m not worried about anything. Jason has evaded them before and he’ll do it again. Now, what do you want for breakfast? I make a mean omelette.”

Tim shrugged, food being the last thing on his mind. “Just coffee and toast.”

Roy tilted his head, pale eyebrows pulling together. “You need to eat. And eat real food, at that. How does scrambled eggs, toast, and orange juice sound?”

Honestly, the smell of Roy’s omelette was starting to turn his stomach. He let a nauseated chill sweep through his frame and readjusted his damp shirt so it didn’t stick to his back.

Tim rolled his eyes. It was like the diner incident all over again. “It sounds like something Jason told you to feed to me. Tell me,  d o you always do whatever he tells you to do? Don’t you have a mind of your own? A cup of coffee isn’t going to kill me.”

“Yes, it will.”

Tim stared at him in disbelief until Roy threw his head back in silent outrage. 

“Jason told me you were supposed to be some kind of genius, so I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out yet.”

Tim sighed and rubbed hastily at his face, wiping the sweat from his upper lip off onto his pant leg. “Look… in any other scenario I’d love to show off my skills and figure out what you’re thinking, but I feel like death warmed over right now. So, just tell me. Coffee. Yes or no?”

“Seriously, kid? Don’t you know anything about drug chemistry? Even Jason understands this.”

Tim slid off the kitchen stool and stumbled his way around Roy to the coffee pot. “Yeah, no worries. I’ll get it myself. You just keep on talking.”

Roy yanked the pot out of his hands, coffee sloshing around inside, and shoved it back into the stand. “You’ve been having panic attacks. Adding caffeine into the mix might legitimately kill you. That’s what happens the minute you come off fear toxin and all those benzos.”

“Yeah, alright I admit there was a bit of an adjustment period, but I’m fine now—”

“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to, huh? Whatever adjustment period you’re going through is far from over. ” 

As much as Tim wanted to continue debating this point with Roy, he was worried that his persistent resistance to Jason’s rules would result in a change of living situations, and not for the better. He’d already learned on multiple occasions of late that this was a game he was doomed to lose with every hand he played. So Tim checked his emotions and stepped back, adding quietly, “Orange juice sounds great.”

Roy’s forehead creased. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to shout at you—”

“It’s fine,” Tim cut in, resuming his seat at the table. “I was in the wrong… like you explained.”

“No, really—” 

The window over the radiator shot open and they both turned to see Jason clambering in through it, pulling a very familiar backpack in after him. He stood, dropping another broken helmet in the box with the others and addressed Tim in a slightly winded voice, “I brought some of your stuff.”

“Did you run all the way here with it?” asked Roy, as Tim took it out of his hands and peeked inside. “Because it sounds like you did. I thought you were doing extra cardio.”

Tim pushed past a few pairs of clothes to find his laptop, charger, and a jaggling mess of electrical components and tools in a pile at the bottom— from the way it was packed it looked like Jason had just swiped anything sitting out on top of his work desk into the opening without any knowledge of what it was for. 

He sighed and moved the bag into Jason’s makeshift garage/workstation to sort out later. Maybe he’d be able to show Jason his gratitude by designing some tech for his bike.

He heard Jason as he came back into the safehouse. “Yeah, I doubled back and came the long way to make sure I wasn’t being followed. But look, I found it, it’s all in there!”

Tim rounded the corner to see Roy flipping through a familiar pocket notebook that set his hair on end, feeling for all the world like Roy was flipping through something deeply personal— like his diary, except he didn’t have a diary. He supposed if he did though, Keselman’s notes on Tim’s drugged rants and ravings would be the closest thing to what he’d put in one. 

Jason pulled Roy’s plate across the counter towards him and started digging into it with silent and ravenous focus. 

“Those are Dr. Keselman’s notes, aren’t they?”

Jason’s fork stilled on its path to his mouth and lowered as both he and Roy fixed Tim with an expression that was mixed equally with worry and guilt. It was one that Tim was noticing more and more, but it’s continued use didn’t make it any easier for him to stomach. 

“I’m going to take your silence as a ‘yes’. When you’re done with that, I’d like to take a look at it.”

_ And burn it _ . 

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” said Jason.

“Why? I’m not going to find anything in there that I don’t already know.”

Roy shrugged at Jason. “He’s kinda got a point there, Jaybird.”

Jason snatched the bite of eggs off of his fork before waving it dismissively around by his head, “Fine, whatever you want. But if shit hits the fan then you’re cleaning it up.”

He moved to fill a mug with coffee from the pot. Tim watched him take the first sip from his standing spot by the couch, silent and ever so jealous of his health compared to his own. 

“By the way,” Jason took another sip, “How did you two get on without me? Any problems so far?”

“Uh—” Roy hesitated and cast a questioning look at Tim. “Well, actually Jason—”

“Yeah, really good actually,” Tim forced a smile and shook his head ever so slightly at Roy. “Roy’s already giving out some sound advice. Kinda feels like I have another big brother.”

_ Another person to watch out for _ ,  _ that is. _ He felt horrible for thinking it because he knew if given some time he’d probably learn to like Roy— maybe even value his opinions. But as it stood at the moment Tim just couldn’t trust him to speak on his behalf. One hiccup in their current plans or a wrong comment to Jason could mess up the only good thing Tim had going for him. So Roy would just have to play along and fake it until it was actually true, his conscience be damned. 

Jason smiled, looking eagerly between them. “So, does that mean what I think it means? You’ll sponsor him?” 

Roy crossed his arms over his chest and nodded. “Just for a week or so, until Tim’s back on steady ground and can find another sponsor here in Gotham.”

Jason laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “You big softie.”

Tim scratched at his arm, stepping a little closer. “Hey, Jason? I’m not feeling so hot this morning and I’m kinda worried about what that’s going to lead to later on. Do you think I could take something just to ease the symptoms a bit?”

Roy coughed into his fist.  

Tim continued on hurridley, “I know you guys are worried about the dosages still, but you also talked about seizures and heart attacks and I think even just half a pill would push those worries from my head, you know?”

Jason and Roy seemed to hold a silent conversation with just a few shared glances at each other, before Jason turned back to Tim with an uneasy smile. “Yeah, I totally understand what you’re saying, Tim. But it’ll only take us a few hours to look over these notes and map out a solid step-down routine. And if we do, then we can start that step-down today and knock off an extra day where you feel like shit, you get me?”

“Yeah, no. I totally understand.” Tim tried for a smile and felt it twitch with strain. He rubbed at his mouth in an effort to cover it. 

“So you think you can make it a few more hours?” prompted Jason in that soft careful voice that set Tim’s nerves on end instead of calming them. 

“Yeah, um— I think I’m just gonna go sort through that stuff you brought back and see if I can make anything useful from it.”   

“Great idea,” said Roy. “Keep your mind occupied.”

Tim nodded hasilty and shuffled out of the room. He shut the door to the loading dock, relieved to have a barrier between Jason and Roy’s ever watching, ever critical eyes. Tim found one of Jason’s spare leather jackets hung up on a peg by the door and pulled it around his shoulders to block off the chill in the air that was sending him into bouts of shivers despite the sweat wetting the baby hairs at the back of his neck.  

He pulled out the stool in front of Jason’s workbench and perched himself on top of it, drawing his backpack into his lap to rifle through it. He pulled out his clothes and laptop first, pushing them off to the side to bring inside later. Then he upturned his backpack over the workbench, dropping a cascade of tools and electrical parts onto the tabletop. Tim shook the bag for any lingering pieces and then slipped his stack of clothes back inside to keep them clean from the dust and grease that stained the workbench from Jason’s previous projects. 

Rummaging through a few of the drawers, he found a beaten up notebook and a stub of a pencil which he used to create a quick inventory of parts and tools, sorting each into its own pile. He checked the time on the old clock on the far wall, his heart sinking as he realized only a half hour had elapsed. Grumbling to himself, he dove into sketching some new gadgets, drawing on some old tech he’d put into the R-cycle during his years with the Titans— his leg bouncing against the bottom rung of the stool the entire time. All the while his ears were perked towards the inner rooms of the safehouse, eager for the sound of Jason’s approaching footsteps to signal the finalization of his new step-down plan. 

Another hour passed and still it didn’t come. Tim threw his pencil down and rested his aching head against the table top with a groan. Keep your mind occupied? Fuck that, it felt like his head was going to crack in half like an egg.

Tim pulled his laptop over toward him, telling himself it was routine updating he was doing as he pulled up his criminal database and pinpointed their current location, scrolling around in a five mile radius on Gotham’s map to see which criminals had joints nearby. He noted Penguin’s Iceberg Lounge with interest, only one subway line away, and a notorious meeting ground for some of Gotham’s flashiest crime organizations. 

Just research, he reminded himself. There was a knock on the garage door behind him that startled him enough to slam his laptop closed. Tim half turned in his seat to look, almost believing he’d imagined it, until the person outside banged loudly against the grated metal again and sent it rattling on its tracks. 

The door to the safehouse opened and Jason took a step down onto the stairs, eyes fixed on the exterior door, his hand lingering uneasily against the doorframe. 

Tim watched him before whispering, “Did you tell anyone else about this place? Another outsider maybe?”

Jason shook his head and flinched back into Roy who stood behind him as the banging resumed. 

“Jason open the door. I know you’re in there!” Dick voiced shouted, muffled by the wall between them. 

Tim jumped to his feet and grabbed for his backpack. “You swore you wouldn’t tell him where I was!”

“Tim? Tim, is that you? It’s Dick, please just open the door!”

Jason threw up his hands. “And I didn’t, Tim. I spent all of last night trying to lose him and only came back here when I thought the coast was clear.”

“Well, it obviously wasn’t, Jason! And now he’s right outside!!”

“Hey, hey!” Roy shoved past Jason and down the stairs. “He might know where we are now, but that doesn’t mean we have to let him inside. Alright? I’ll send him away.”

“Don’t open that door,” said Tim. “please, don’t.”

“It’s gonna be fine,” Roy motioned aggressively to Jason, “Will you go stand by him before he dies of a panic attack or something? For fucks sake, Jason. I can’t babysit everyone.”

Jason shook his head as if to clear it. “Yeah, ‘course. Sorry.”

He jumped down the steps and moved to stand protectively at Tim’s side, positioning himself between Tim and the door and blocking Tim from sight with his broad shoulders. As Roy moved to unlock the padlock that held the door closed, Jason ducked his head to speak quietly to Tim. 

“Remember, Tim. He might have come here wanting to talk but you set the terms. We won’t let anything happen unless you want it to. You have control of this situation.”  

Roy pulled on the chain until the door rested all the way up on the track. Dick was dressed in civvies and he barely waited for the door to clear his chest before ducking under. His eyes landed on Tim’s face where he’d shifted around Jason’s broad form to see more clearly. 

Dick moved hurriedly towards them and Jason stepped forward and caught him in the chest with one hand. He stopped Dick’s forward progress with one aggressive jerk of his hand fisted in Dick’s shirt, pulling him back a step so he was eye to eye with him.

“You’ve got a lot of balls showing up here.” spat Jason.

Dick met his hard gaze. “I listen to the tapes, Jason. All night.” 

His tried to shift his gaze around Jason’s head to catch sight of Tim. “I’m so sorry, Timmy. I didn’t know what was happening at Breckenridge— I couldn’t visit you—”

“Well, whose fault was that?” countered Jason. 

“Please, Tim. I just want to apologize and make sure you’re alright.”

“He’s fine. We’re taking care of him.”

Tim sure didn’t feel fine in that moment.

“I thought you said he had a drug problem. He should be in a rehab facility, Jason!”

“That’s why I’m here,” Roy walked around them to stand near Jason. “I’m sponsoring Tim and overseeing his detox to make sure it's performed safely.”

Dick laughed. “Well, excuse me if that statement doesn’t fill me with confidence, Roy, but I really can’t trust my brother’s safety to you.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

Dick jerked his shirt free of Jason’s grip and turned on him. “Because you’re an addict, Roy. Jason might be okay with that and willing to give you a shot at sponsoring because you’re his best friend, but I’m not. Because from where I’m standing you’ve been in and out of rehab for  _ years! _ If you can’t manage to stay sober then I really don’t think you should be giving faulty advice to Tim.”

“I think you should leave,” said Jason, so deadly calm that it scared Tim a little. 

“I’m Tim’s guardian, Jason! You don’t get to decide what best for him, that’s my job.”

“Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

Dick flinched. “What the hell does that mean, huh? You gonna fight me for guardianship, dead boy?”

Jason shook his head. “Of course I won’t.”

Tim’s eyes dropped to the floor. 

“Did you know that Tim got Bruce to sign off on emancipation papers before he died? Signed, sealed, but never filed— guess he never got the chance.  I found them in his apartment last night when I was waiting for you to lose interest in tailing me around the city and head on home.”

“What? Tim, tell me that’s not—”

“Don’t worry,” Jason cut over him with a smile.  “I took them with me.”

Tim’s eyes jumped back up to Jason, full of shock and unspeakable gratitude, as the older boy continued,  “I’m going to keep them save for him incase that’s still something he wants to pursue once he recovers. And based on recent events, I think we both know that he will.”

His words were entirely the threat that Dick perceived them to be. Tim was still reeling with the knowledge of it all and he couldn’t decide if he wanted to break down crying with relief or run and hide himself away and distance his mind from this broken person that his entire family thought of him as, someone everyone was trying to fix, or save, or reform. All he really knew was that thinking about this hurt his head too much and he needed to get away.

He dropped Jason’s jacket onto the stool and backed away from the trio towards the stairs that led into the safehouse, his backpack still slung across one shoulder. 

He heard Roy speak up again as he was racing up the stairs to the second floor, pointing Dick not-so-kindly in the direction of the door. They were too involved in their own small grudges to spare him more than a glance. He found Jason’s bedroom at the back of the second floor, and rifled through the drawers— realizing too late that he wouldn’t have hid the pills in his room. Downstairs, Tim now remembered vaguely, but Jason and Roy would be back inside in a moment and he couldn’t be found searching the place for them. 

With quickly diminishing hope, Tim dug into the pockets of Jason’s other jacket, the one he’s wrapped around Tim in Roy’s car the other night. No pills, but Tim came away with a handful of cash from the diner. It would be enough, Tim judged, and he could walk the other half of the way there if  he needed to save some cash.

He stepped out the fire escape off the second floor hallway, the cold air whipping his sweaty t-shirt around like the fabric of a kite. He was feverish and cramped with pains that came and went with the breeze, but he was alone.  _ No eyes _ , he thought to himself,  _ no stares and judgements and obligations. I’m free to be me, even if this version of Tim  doesn’t care to remember who Tim Drake was, should, or would be. _

He raced down the fire escape steps and across the empty streets of the waterfront district with their vacant and boarded up warehouses. He’d woken up late in the morning and now at late afternoon the sun was dropping down into an evening array of pink, yellow, and orange clouds that tinted the rooftops and cast long shadows on the pavement. 

Tim crossed his arms tight across his chest to keep warm and disappeared into the darkness of those shadows, leaving it all behind him.  


	7. Chapter 7

“I think it’s time that you go,” said Roy, placing a firm hand on Dick’s shoulder in a way that made it clear Dick would find himself on the other side of that door soon, whether he walked there on his own accord or not. 

Still, Dick continued to plead his case. “All I want to do is help.”

Jason shook his head.  “It’s a little late for that now, don’t you think?”

He didn’t know when his previous show of angry bravado had faded to a weariness for this constant in-fighting. Maybe it was when he’d had a good long look at Dick’s stricken expression after he’d delivered the news about the emancipation papers. An indescribable look had flickered across his features as the knowledge settled into his bones… the knowledge that Tim might amputate his entire relationship with him— like Dick was a diseased limb that could kill him if left to fester and spread. Jason knew the feeling intimately and it felt like a special kind of death. 

Suddenly, he felt torn in two. Where did his loyalty lie? 

With Tim? Dick?  _ Himself _ ? There was his survival instinct kicking in again; telling him to fuck them all and run for the hills.

Jason hung back and watched on as Dick took a reluctant step backwards as Roy crowded him, forcing him step by step towards the exit. Dick didn’t even waste his energy trying to change Roy’s mind, his whole attention was focused on Jason as if he knew that he was the only real person in the room with the power to stop his ejection. It was true, he could stop this if he wanted— sit down with Dick and talk it out, but Jason felt powerless to force his own body into movement, stuck fast where he stood unable to make up his mind whether to help or hinder his brother. 

Would hearing him out betray Tim?

“Just let me explain my side of things before you shut me out, please?”

For all the shitty things that Dick had done to him in the past, Jason knew that, even when wrong, those deeds were done with good intentions. Maybe it was because of that that Jason never had the heart to watch Dick beg. 

He found his voice. “Roy, wait.”

Roy looked over his shoulder, hand still pushing against Dick’s upper body. “You sure you want to do this?”

Jason would only be leading himself into the possibility of future manipulation if he took Tim’s side on every issue without question. Tim had already shown them that he knew how to play on their concerns for his well-being in order to get drugs from them. It hadn’t worked, and Tim had been quick to back off and save face, but just the fact that he’d done it with such guile on his first try had hit Jason like a blow to the head. 

“Yeah.”

Roy dropped his hand away and Dick stood patiently as he waited for Roy to back up and give him some breathing room. 

“Can we go inside and talk about this?” asked Dick.

“No. Not while Tim’s in there. I don’t want him to have to hear this.”

Dick’s brow creased. “You don’t want him to hear my side of the story?”

Jason knuckled his temple in an attempt to ease the tension building up there. 

“Honestly, hearing it won’t mean shit to him. All of the apologies you have to give won’t mean shit to him. Because they won’t change what happened as a result of your actions. Stop apologizing. Learn from your mistakes. Live with it.”

“You say that like it’s so easy.”

Jason shrugged and said nothing, choosing instead to stub the toe of his boot against the grease splattered floor. It  _ wasn’t _ an easy thing to do and Dick knew that, so there was really nothing more he could say. He wasn’t going to lie.

“You weren’t there…” Dick trailed off just as quickly as he’d started. 

He threw his arms out at his side, limbs heavy with such a visible weariness that it made Jason feel like he’d just watched him walk into Gotham River until his head disappeared under it’s dark water. Dick was drowning, that much was clear.

He waited patiently for Dick to gathering himself and continue, stewing with his own uneasy thoughts as the silence dragged on. 

“You weren’t there to see what is was like after Bruce’s funeral. I had to take over being Batman and it was clear that Damian needed the mentorship that came with being Robin. I felt horrible for taking that away from Tim. Horrible! But…  Damian didn’t just lose Batman. He also lost his father… I figured Tim would understand that and come around to creating a new persona with time.”

“It seemed like he’d started to with Red Robin. So why didn’t you leave him be?”

“Because he came back to the manor with some crazy theory that Bruce wasn’t actually dead but lost.”

“Lost? Like, what,” asked Jason, “in the woods?”

“Washed up on a desert island like Green Arrow?” asked Roy clearly happy for the change in conversation.

“No, like lost in space and time.” Dick threw up his hands. “I mean, it was absolutely insane! We buried his bones in the family plot. There was physical evidence— forensic reports for Tim to read— and  _ still _ he kept going on about it. He’d practically barricaded himself inside his apartment. He wouldn’t come back to the manor—”

“So you thought committing him to a psych ward was the next best step?” asked Jason.

“Yes! I made the choice to give him the psychological care he needed.”

“Maybe he didn’t need psychological help! Maybe he just needed someone to listen to him.”

Dick blinked at him. “Are you saying you believe him?”

“We live in a world of aliens, metahumans, and lazarus pits. Does Tim’s theory have some very large, adult male body-size holes in it? Yeah, one hundred percent.  Is it impossible?” He racked a hand through his hair. “Honestly, I don’t know. But, I would have at least listened to him and it was shitty of you to not even call me and ask for help.”

“That guilt trip works both ways, Jason.” said Dick. “You could have reached out just as easily as I could.”

“He’s got a point there, Jaybird.”

“Yeah. Now look where it’s gotten us.”

Dick nodded and cast his gaze about the room, but whatever he was looking for his eyes never settled on it. Finally, he looked between Jason and Roy and extended his hand to Jason. “Truce? For Tim’s sake.”

Jason stared at his hand for a long moment, weighing out the options in his head. He’d settled on his answer and was ready to state it— whether it was the right decision or not— when he was blinded by a blur of denim fabric and curly hair as a woman fell into him. He caught her by the shoulders and righted her, hands lingering for a minute to allow her to totter back on her chunky heels.

She straightened up and took a step back. 

“Daisy?” said Jason. 

Daisy adjusted the tight dress she wore beneath her oversized denim jacket so that it rested to mid thigh. She pushed her blonde curls out of her eyes and flashed him a smile. “Hey, Jay. Sorry for running into you, literally, but it’s a bit of an emergency. Well, I think it is, anyway.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m sorry—” Dick shouldered his way in between them. “Who is this and why is she in your safehouse?”

“Weren’t you listening?” said Roy. “This is Daisy.”

“Hey there, Daise,” Roy flashed her a smile and jutted a finger in Dick’s direction. “this is our friend, Dick. Don’t worry he’s in the night business too.”

Daisy gave Dick an appreciative once over. “My kind or yours?”

Roy crowed with laughter. “Ours. But you hear that, Dickie? If this line of work doesn’t pan out for you, you always have something to fall back on.”

Dick looked less than amused. “Yeah, hilarious. What is she doing here?”

“Daisy and I have a mutually beneficial business arrangement.”

“How’s that?”

“Well,” said Jason. “I make a habit of keeping an eye on Daisy and the other girls who work this neighborhood. You know, run off any troublemakers. In exchange for my services, Daisy reports any suspicious activity she sees in the area.”

Daisy gave Jason’s shoulder a playful shove. “Yeah and sometimes he climbs into my place through the window at four in the morning and asks me to cauterize his bullet wounds with a bottle of vodka and my best curling iron.” 

“Oh, real professional, Jason!”

“Yeah we’ve gotta be, don’t we? ‘Cause I mean this boy’s got thighs that make me wanna…” She trailed off with a giggle.  “Well... let’s just say I’ve seen more of this boy’s skin than half of my clients combined.” 

Jason ducked his head with a smile. He thought he heard Daisy offering her specialty medical services to Dick (no curling iron service fee included) in an sly undertone to Dick but couldn’t be sure. For all at once Daisy turned back and punched him hard in the shoulder.

“Wait! What am I even doing right now? I totally forgot what I came here to tell you!”

“Ow. Well what is it?” asked Jason, with slightly less warmth than before as he rubbed his sore shoulder. 

“That kid that’s staying with you? Saw him climb down your fire escape and head off towards the nearest subway. I could tell even from a distance that he didn’t look in a good way— kinda sweaty and wrung out. ”

Jason’s heart jumped to his throat, all humor dashed in an instant. He spun at once to find Roy, who was already halfway off the stool he’d been sitting on. “Go check the rooms now.”

Roy flew around the railing and up the steps into the safehouse, the door flying open under his hand. Jason tried to gather his thoughts but it was hard to concentrate when the door banged against its frame like a drum playing the offbeat to the rhythmic pound of blood pumping through his ears. He tried to think of the last time he remembered Tim being in the room with them, but he’d been so focused on yelling at Dick in that moment that he’d barely noticed the kid slip out behind him. 

“How long ago was this?”

Daisy tossed her hair out of her face. “Uh, maybe five minutes ago now?”

Roy came whipping around the corner, catching himself hurriedly against the stairway rail. “Gone.”

“I’m going out after him.” said Dick.

“Wait— What?” Jason shouted at his retreating back. “You don’t even know where he’s going!”

He was already gone. Behind him Roy was questioning Daisy further.

“You sure it was towards the bridge?”

Daisy nodded.  

“Ok. If he’s heading downtown on the subway where’s the nearest place he could score?”

“How do we even know he’s taking the subway? He could be looking for a dealer on the street for all we know! God, this is a fucking mess!”

Roy shook his head. “Unlikely. He doesn’t know the area and who deals nearby. More likely that he’s going to an established dealing ground.”

“I don’t know what he knows or doesn’t know,” snapped Jason. “Truth is; I don’t know that kid half as well as I like to think I do.”

“Hey,” Roy snapped his fingers sharply in Jason’s face. “Stop losing your shit. If I’m wrong and he’s on the streets there’s a chance Dick will find him. If I’m right, then we go and stop him before he makes a big mistake. So,  _ think _ Jason! I know you’ve got feelers out on every shady dealer and scoring ground south of the Bowery. He’s a minor who’s strapped for cash and sick from withdrawal. Where’s he heading?” 

Jason pressed his palm to his eyes and thought hard. “The Iceberg Lounge. Penguin’s club brings in a large crowd of criminals from all backgrounds. He’s got the best chance of scoring there.”

Roy ruffled Jason’s hair. “Let’s go bring him home, Jaybird.” 


	8. Chapter 8

Tim could feel the pound of the bass in the soles of his feet as he stood on the sidewalk outside the Iceberg Lounge. His button-down shirt hung loose past his shoulders and he found himself hugging it closer to his chest for warmth. He’d stolen it out of the back of a car and it was clearly meant for a man much broader than him, but nobody ever said that thieves could be picky.

He eyed the bouncer at the door and watched closely as a man pulled out his wallet, counted a few billed into his palm, and paid the cover charge.

Just then another spasm hit and it felt like someone had physically reached inside him, grabbed hold of his insides, and twist them sharply. Tim smacked a fist against the brick wall beside him and bit harshly into the meaty flesh under his thumb, letting a muffled groan escape him.

He didn’t have time for this, his realized suddenly. He couldn’t bare the thought of waiting in that long line as his pains became increasingly harder to handle. And who was to say that even if he did stay in line and pay the cover that he’d have enough cash remaining to buy the drugs he needed?

Tim cursed aloud. He couldn’t take the risk.

He slipped away towards the back entrance.

It was a long cold wait behind a dumpster— the wind, which had cooled his feverish skin earlier that evening, had picked up to a bluster that sprayed a light drizzle into Tim’s face. The weather, combined with the rotten stink of the dumpster next to him, gave Tim the odd sensation that he was by the ocean. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and hitched up his shoulders to block out the worst of it.

He longed for the heavy weight and durable warmth of Batman’s cape or Jason’s oversized jacket—  wishing more than ever to feel either item draped across his shoulders again— something he doubted he’d experience again for Bruce was probably dead, Dick couldn’t be trusted, and Jason most likely resented him by now.  Thoughts of Jason sent him into a dark and guilty spiral. He’d taken him in and Tim had repaid him by running from him— probably never to see him again.

 _You had too_ , he reminded himself. For Jason’s actions, however kind, were clearly only motivated by a need to rub it in Dick’s face. The scene which he’d left behind at Jason’s apartment had made that painfully clear to him. Being in Jason’s ‘care’ felt no more freeing than being in Dick’s. Neither of them understood the pain that raged inside Tim’s mind and body and the fact that one simple pill could soothe it enough to give Tim time to pull himself back together— for that was what he was doing right now; holding himself together with both hands.

 _No_ , he thought, _I’ve just got to keep moving forward and forget them all._

Once again he was on his own. Maybe with time he could convince himself that it was better that way. But right now, it felt like either direction he turned was the wrong way. Was he making the wrong decision? Did he even have a choice in the matter when going without the drugs felt as if it may kill him? Maybe there was still time to turn back…Maybe Jason would—  

Tim jerked abruptly out of his thoughts as a member of the waitstaff duck out into the rain to chuck a trash bag into the dumpster. He caught the service door as it was swinging shut and slipped inside. As the door closed behind him—  leaving him standing alone at the end of a dark hall— he realized that his choice had already been made.

There was no turning back now.

He stepped out of the narrow confines of the hall, the first floor of the club opening up around him and surrounding him with all it’s noise and scores of people. It crashed into Tim like a strong wave off the shore and he felt  pushed underwater by it spinning head over heels in breathless panic. Eventually, he got his feet under him again and saw that he was standing by one of the long bars which stretched the length of the wall— its chrome accents glowed in the darkness of the club and reflected the strobing neon blues of the overhead lights. Tim moved closer to the mass of bodies on the dance floor and craned his head up, squinting past the blinding lights mounted under the second floor balcony to see what lay beyond. From his best guess he’d have to say it was the V.I.P. section intended for Gotham’s wealthiest to show off. Definitely, not what he was looking for.

Tim cast his gaze around the scene and finally found his destination in a dimly lit area of the ground floor where a series of private rooms lined one wall. The casual partygoer might mistake them for utility closets or staff offices, but Tim knew better. They were the Iceberg Lounge’s under-the-table cash cow— meeting areas on common ground for the majority of Gotham’s unlawful exchanges (be they mafia dealings or the selling of illicit small arms and narcotics). Gotham’s criminal underworld paid a hefty free for the enforced safety and anonymity that Penguin’s men provided here and Gotham’s finest had consistently failed to bring in actionable evidence to shut it down.

Tim pushed his way towards the rooms, all the while trying to quell the nausea crawling up his throat. He’d never acted as a customer before— not even undercover (for Bruce had judged him too young and unconvincing and had tasked him with surveillance instead) — but now that he was looking to buy for real the situation felt more life or death than any sting operation ever could.

He stopped against a pillar to catch his breath as the current of noise and bodies in the club threatened to pull his feet out from under him again.

Someone grabbed his forearm and Tim jerked around to find a man standing right at his elbow. On instinct he tried to shuck off the hand on his arm before the man finally stepped closer and shouted in Tim’s ear to be heard over the thumping bass.

“What are you buying?”

Tim studied his face but found it cool and unreadable. There was always the chance that this could be a setup from an undercover officer, though it was more reasonable to assume that they would be trying to get in contact with the dealers not the customers, still…

“I don’t know what your—”

“Oh, _c’mon_ kid.” The man raised his eyebrows with a knowing curl of his lips. “You’ve got the look. I can always tell when someone’s looking for a fix. So, what’s it gonna be?”

Tim hesitated for only a moment. “Benzos.”

The man’s eyebrows jumped further into his hairline as he laughed. “ _Man!_ Bet this place must suck for you, huh?”

 _Yeah_ , thought Tim. _You could say that._

The man clearly wasn’t looking for an answer, though, since he simply steered him towards the nearest meeting room and pushed him across the threshold, closing the door behind him. Inside, Tim found himself face to face with two men, one stretched out casually along a leather couch, swirling a drink with one hand, the other standing at his shoulder sorting through a pile of small plastic baggies filled with pills. He stared at the pills in all of their orange, blue, pink, and white variations until eventually they all started to smear together in a kaleidoscope of colors. The room itself was not much to look at; just a collection of cushy leather seats, a glass top table or two, and a small private bar, fully stocked, off to the side. Tim took it in with a hurried sweep of his gaze before focusing his attention back of the real attention getters in the room, the two strangers that would decide his fate.

The man from the club made quick introductions, though Tim couldn’t imagine that he had all that much to say since he didn’t even know his name. The man on the couch leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and gave him a critical once over.

Tim blinked hard and put a hand up to steady his throbbing head. He thought the man on the couch might have said something to him, or maybe he had asked him a question, but it was a dull drone at the limit of Tim’s hearing. The buzz in his head rose in pitch like the static noise on a faulty radio station.

_Oh, no._

Everything was falling away again like Tim’s previous withdrawal episodes, but this one felt so much worse… like he was Alice falling down the rabbit hole and dropping deep _deep_ underground without any hope of finding his way out again.

There was a burst of movement from the corner of the room as the man sorting the pills stopped what he was doing and plunged his hand into a nearby ice bucket. It was the last thing Tim saw before the room pitched sharply and he found himself leaning heavily into the stranger’s chest.

The man pressing a fistful of ice cubes against the back of his neck and Tim came alert with a sputtered cry. He tried to move away from the icy touch, but found himself held fast by the shoulder and could do no more than hold up his own weight.

“The poor kid’s gonna drop on us before he even gets the chance to pay up.” The man said, close enough to prickle the hairs on the back of his neck. “How about one on the house, Mick? He looks good for it.”

“Yeah, you think so?” Mick swirled the ice in his drink and took a sip, eyeing him over the rim of the glass.

The still unnamed dealer beside him started to rub his fingers against the skin of his neck. Tim thought he must be self-medicating as well as dealing. The other guy he’d met on the dancefloor had disappeared without a word, probably to go find the next paying customer.

Small rivulets of water trickled down into the collar of Tim’s shirt.

He pulled the man’s hand off of him and stepped to the side so that he could see him out of the corner of his eye. “I’d really just like to pay for what I came here for— if it’s all the same to you.”

Mick grunted a laugh and the two men shared a look. “Don’t you want to try one out before you buy? Make sure we’re not selling you baby aspirin or some shit?”

“Are you?” asked Tim. His throat was as dry as a desert and his legs like two trembling twigs supporting his weight. He didn’t care one way or the other— he just wanted to get the drugs and leave this place as soon as possible.

Another look was shared between the dealers and the one beside Tim stepped around him, tossing the half melted ice cubes back into the bucket on the bar before fixing another drink. He came back to stand before Tim and held out both hands to him; in one the glass with a neat inch of whiskey in the bottom, and resting in his other open palm a small white pill much like the one Jason had given him.

Tim eyed both hesitantly, though he couldn’t have said why. He’d watched the man pour the drink in case he tried to slip something into the glass, but he hadn’t and the pill was much the same as what Tim remembered it to look like.

To give himself more time, Tim took the glass of whiskey from his hand first and took a small swallow, this throat working hard to stifle a cough as it burned its way down.

Still nothing came to him and he couldn’t squash his curiosity. “This is more than being hospitable. Why would you give this to me for free?”

“Precautionary measure.” said Mick without looking up as he picked at the dirt under his nails.

In the end, it was the other dealer that gave him the truth with a shrug and a sharp cocky smile that was all teeth with no actual kindness. He said simply, “Undercover cops can’t do drugs. Take it or don’t, but if you refuse know that we won’t sell to you tonight or any other night. Your choice.”

Finally it clicked into place and his own hesitance made sense to him. If they thought he was an undercover cop then taking the drugs, even if he did manage to then record a sale on tape, would make the evidence excusable in court. But if he refused he’d only reaffirm their suspictions, and cop or not, he wouldn’t get what he needed. Except, how alert would he be when making a deal while he was on something— they could take him for all he had. Now he understood that cocky smile on the man’s face because no matter who Tim claimed to be, or what decision he made, he was fucked either way.

_My choice._

“I’m not a cop,” he said.

“Good,” the man stepped into Tim’s personal space and suddenly he was pressing the pill between Tim’s lips and nudging his drink up to chase it. “Then, bottoms up.”

Tim swallowed the unsavory mixture of medication and whiskey in one mouthful and stood waiting, the glass held limply in his right hand, for it to kick in and loosen up the panicked tightness of his muscles. He should have hated himself… should have hated the taste and the eager stares of the men around him, but he didn’t. He was too busy waiting for the bottom to drop out from under him— for that blissful feeling of floating and sinking all at once and the knowledge that nothing could touch him once it hit his system: sounds, sights, and emotions simply bounced off him and spun out into infinite space. _Maybe if I was a better person,_ he thought to himself,   _I would hate myself, But there’s no time to think about that now_. As he felt the world around him slow and bleed out like runny ink on paper he wondered once again if doing something bad like this to himself, in the hopes that it helped him save another, made him a good person, or just another drug addict trying to justify getting his fix.

Guilt sparked in his chest for a single painful moment and disappeared just as fast.


End file.
